


My Little Baby Llama

by littlellamalittlelion



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-09-28 10:32:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 48,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10093007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlellamalittlelion/pseuds/littlellamalittlelion
Summary: Dan has a 4 years old daughter, Elizabeth, that only his family and Phil knows about. She lives with her mom, Clary, in a house next to Dan’s parents, and she grew up having Dan’s family, her mom, Dan and Phil supporting her. Lizzie is the happiness in Dan’s live, but to protect her he only sees her when he goes to his parents, and he talks to her every week on facetime. When an accident happens to Clary, and leaves her in a coma, everything that Lizzie wants is her Daddy, and Dan will do anything to make his baby girl happy again. Even if it means to take her back with him to London to live with him and Phil.





	1. The Accident

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!
> 
> \- This is an AU, nothing here is expected to be real or based on true stories;
> 
> \- English IS NOT my first language, so please, any mistakes let me know and I'll fix it;
> 
> \- Dan and Phil do not belong to me;
> 
> \- Posted originally on Tumblr.
> 
> I hope you guys are ready for a real fluffy Parent!Dan and Uncle!Phil story.
> 
> Enjoy!

Dan’s P.OV

 

“Are you coming to Brazil? “ I read out loud from the chat. “I’d love to come to Brazil one day. Its a cool country that I’ve never been to.” I answer, trying to ignore my phone calling for the third time. My mom has this thing that she always forget that my live shows are on Tuesday’s nights, and since Tuesday is the day that Lizzie leaves school earlier and stays the whole afternoon with her, she always calls me to let me talk to my baby girl. 

 

Lizzie, or Elizabeth Anne Platt-Howell, is my just-turned 4 years old daughter. Back in 2011, when me and Phil still lived together in Manchester I met a girl, named Clarisse Platt , she was a Law student just like me, she was from the same city as me,  and we were really good friends, even after I dropped college. One day we were just having fun with some school friends, and we ended up really drunk and things happened, things that we didn’t want to discuss because we were just friends that made a mistake, but the mistake ended up in something more, and 9 months later, on the 5th of January 2012, Lizzie was born.  I was there when Lizzie was born. Holding that small little yellow package in my arms for the first time was the best moment of my life, Lizzie had me around her fingers from day one. But 2012 was the year that my whole life changed. Phil and I were starting to get more recognition because of youtube, and some BBC Radio 1 things, and our fans were really lovely, but kinda crazy, and I was afraid of letting Lizzie grow up in this world. So I ended up having to take the hardest decision of my life: leave Lizzie behind with her mom and my parents, and move to London with Phil, so we could pursue with our youtube careers and work at BBC. 

 

Clary and I decided that it was better for Lizzie if no one knew about her existence, and people that actually knew, didn’t know who her father was. Lizzie would use just her mom’s last name in school, and I would travel to see "my parents" as much as possible, so I could spend time with her. The fans never discovered, too blinded by all the “Phan” things to notice the real us and that was really good. Phil loves Lizzie as his own. He always wanted kids, but he thinks he is too young for it, funny thing is that I am four years younger and I have a 4 years old daughter, and now he basically adopted my kid. Lizzie loves “Uncle Philly”, but that is because Phil always gives her the best gifts ever, like for real, the girl has everything, all because Phil can’t say no to her. He is the one to blame if she is a spoiled brat in the future.   
  
  


“Earth to Dan!” Screamed Phil entering the room. I was talking some random stuffs to people in the live chat, completely oblivious to life around me, and he scared me as hell.

 

“Jesus on a freaking bicycle Phil! You could have killed me!” I scream at him, laughing. I turn my chair to look at him, and he has a serious face on, and his phone in his hand. Something was wrong.

 

“Your mom needs to talk to you. It is really important, you should take it.” He says, offering me his phone. The first thing that came to my mind was Elizabeth. My mom would never call Phil if it wasn’t an emergency with my daughter. I remember the first time she had the flu, Clary was panicking, she didn’t knew what to do, so she called my mom, that only lives a few blocks away, and my mom helped at 5am. Mom tried calling me, but I am a heavy sleeper, so I didn’t wake up, so she called Phil. He made sure to wake me up and leave me watching them on facetime for the whole morning, until Lizzie was okay. I got up my chair as fast as possible getting the phone from Phil’s hands, and leaving the room. I heard Phil trying to distract the fans on the live show, but I actually didn’t care much about them right now, my baby girl needed me.

 

“Mom? Whats wrong? Is everything okay?” I answer, making sure not to say anything that the fans couldn’t hear, just in case they still could hear me from the office. 

 

“Dan you have to come home. Clary was in an accident, the doctor don’t know if she will be okay. Lizzie is going crazy, we didn’t tell her anything but as soon as the phone ringed with the news she started crying asking for “Daddy”. She needs you. Its like she knows that something is wrong with her mom, and she wants you, she won’t stop crying and asking for you. I tried everything, she doesn’t want Miss Llama, she doesn’t want chocolate, she wants you. Your dad is in the hospital waiting for news with Clary’s sister, Riley, and I should go there later, to stay the night. You have to take the first cab and come home. Now.” My mom said, in one go. My brain was still trying to work around that information, when I heard my baby crying asking for me.

 

“Mom let me talk to Lizzie.” Thats everything that I could say. I heard my mom calling her, and putting her in the phone, in the same time that Phil joined me in the office, looking worried. He told me that the live show was off and the fans were okay, just worried, I thanked him, and heard the phone being passed to another hand.

 

“Daddy?” I heard the sweet voice of my daughter on the phone.

 

“Hey baby girl. I heard you were giving Nana a hard time, what is wrong?” 

 

“Daddy? Where are you? Mommy is leaving me, why everyone leaves me, daddy?” Cried Elizabeth on the phone.

 

“Hey, mommy is not leaving you, neither am I. You know that daddy lives far away, so he can work and buy you all your amazing things, don’t you? You know that I love you, and I won’t leave you. You don’t need to worry about it.” I answered her, trying not to cry, leaving the office and going back to my room, to start packing, Phil followed me, trying to help. I told him to pack his stuffs if he wanted to come with me, and he went back quickly to his room.

 

“Why isn’t mommy home?” Asked her, crying again.

 

“Mommy is sick, Little Llama. Do you remember when you were sick, with a tummy ache, and you had to stay in the hospital for a few days?” I asked her, while trying to grab some shirts and my laptop and chargers.   
  
  


“Yes, and they gave me a lot of jelly. I like jelly.” She sounds a little bit better already. 

 

“Yes, they did give you a lot of jelly. So, mommy is sick, she has to stay in the hospital a few days, and Daddy is going to stay with you, okay? But you have to be good to Nana until I get there, can you do that for me Little Llama?” 

 

“Yes daddy. Is mommy going to eat a lot of jelly too? Can I have some?” The crying was stopping, and she was just sobbing a little bit now. 

 

“I am sure she will, and yes, I will make you some jelly tomorrow, okay? But you have to be a good girl and be good to Nana and Grandpa until I get there, okay? I will be with you as soon as possible, and we will watch Pooh and I will read a little bit more for you of our book, so we can go to bed, okay baby girl?”

 

“Okay, I will be good, I promise. I love you daddy.” She said, warming my heart.

 

“I love you too baby girl, now give the phone back to Nana okay? Daddy needs to talk to her.” I asked, closing my bag, checking if I had everything I needed. I had a lot of clothes back in my parents house, so I didn’t need much. I heard my mom grabbing the phone back, and I sit on my bed to talk to her.

 

“I swear to God, she is daddy’s little girl for sure, I don’t know how you are able to make her do whatever you need so easily.” 

 

“She is smart, she understand’s me. Anyways, take care of her for me please, I will be there in an hour, I’m ordering an Uber and me and Phil will just jump in the car and get there. Call me if you have any news on Clary.” I said, mom agreed and we turned the phones off.

 

“I packed everything. I didn’t have time to buy her a gift, but I have a chocolate box for her, so I think she will be okay.” Said Phil smiling, with a chocolate box in his hands.

 

“Really Phil, you should stop, she is going to be such a spoiled girl in the future, I won’t be able to take care of her one day.” I said winking at him and grabbing my bag. I ordered the Uber, we checked the whole house for open windows and left, for the 1h drive. “I really should apologize to the live show people. What did you said to them?”

 

“I said that you had a little family emergency, and that we would talk to them soon, but they didn’t need to be worried about it. How is Clary?”

 

“They still don’t know. My dad is in the hospital with her and her sister, my mom is going there later, once we get in the house. Lizzie is freaking out though. She had no clue of what was happening, but she was going crazy thinking that Clary didn’t love her anymore and was leaving her. I don’t know why.” I said, taking my phone out of my pocket and tweeting a sincere apology to all my fans.

 

“She is very perceptive Dan, Clary was supposed to pick her up in you mom’s today, right? So once she didn’t show up, she just assumed something. Everything will be fine, you will see.” Said Phil, calming me down. I was better with him by my side.

 

The Uber driver was really quick, so it only took us 55 minutes to get home. I run out of the car and opened the door as fast as possible, to see my little girl, in pink pjs, sited on the floor, playing with a Frozen Castle Lego. Se looked up when she heard the door and once she saw me she run to me as fast as her little legs could reach. I dropped on my knees and hugged her as strong as possible, without wanting to let her go, ever.

 

“Daddy you are here!” She said, smiling and hugging me right tight with her tiny little arms.

 

“I told you I would come! I see you were having fun with the gift Uncle Phil gave to you for Christmas.” I said, not wanting to let her go.

 

“Yes daddy! I love my Frozen Castle, its amazing, like Uncle Philly!” She said trying to leave my embrace, and I let her go. 

 

“So your amazing Uncle Philly deserves a hug too or not?” Said Phil, coming trough the door behind me. I completely forgot him in the car with all of our stuffs. He placed all the bags on the floor just in time to be hit on the legs by a running girl. 

 

“UNCLE PHILLY! You came too!” 

 

“Of course I did! Do you really think I would let your dad come all this way to see you, and not even come here to give you a gift?” Said Phil squatting next to me to hug her better.

 

“What did you bring me?” She asked really excited. Phil grabbed the chocolate box and gave it to her, what made her really happy. “Thank you Uncle Philly! You are the best, I love you!”

 

“Hey! What about me? I come all the way here to see you, and you only love ‘Uncle Philly’?” I joked, smiling at her.

 

“I love you too daddy, more than I love uncle Philly, because you are my daddy, and you look like me!” Answered her, hugging me again. I knew Phil would be hurt with her comment, but I made sure to look at him and smile, and he was smiling back just fine.

 

“Well, I don’t want to cut all the love here, but I really think you should all come fully inside the house so we can close the door, we never know who is walking on the streets these days, right?” Said my mom, looking at me with a warning face on. She was right, if a fan saw this scene, life would be over for Lizzie, she would never be a normal kid again. We grabbed our stuffs and walked all the way in the house. Phil with our bags, and me with Lizzie on my arms. “I know your dad just came back home, and you miss him and uncle Phil, but its time for little Elizabeth to go to bed!” Said mom, looking at me. I knew we needed to talk about Clary, and it would be easier with Lizzie sleeping, and it was already time for her to be in bed.

 

“Your Nana is right, you have to go to sleep. Lets go, I am gonna read you a little bit of your book, and we can talk about it until you feel sleepy, what do you think?” I said walking with her in my arms, stairs up to the second floor, where my room was. Lizzie didn’t have her own room. Since I was never home, and she lived with her mom and only spent a few days every week in here, my room was her room. The room was kinda weird and funky, but it worked for us. We had this huge black king size bed in one corner, with a desk in front of it, and some posters on the wall, in one side. And in the other side, a Pink single bed with white Frozen bed sheets, and fairy lights around it. Mom offered to put a wall in the middle of the giant room, to make a private space for Lizzie, and one for me, but I know that as soon as she grow up a little bit, she will want her own space, and I’m not ready to leave her alone yet on the only few times in the year that we see each other.  

 

Phil followed us to the room, so he could leave the bags on the floor, and prepared to leave the room when he saw me laying on my bed with Lizzie to tell her a history, but Lizzie was faster than him.

 

“Uncle Philly, come here! Daddy is reading me this book about wizards and castles and schools, and its so much fun! Stay here with us.” Asked her, putting her arms in the air, inviting Phil to our bed. Lizzie had never done this before. She always enjoyed the time we had together alone, but I guess because her mom is not here, and she knows that something is wrong, she feels like she needs someone else around her, to love her, and I am glad that she chose Phil. He would never let her down. The three of us had a lot of space in the bed. Phil was laying next to the wall, Lizzie was next to him, in the middle of the two of us, and I was sit on the edge of the bed, with a Harry Potter book in my hands. I started reading the book, and it didn’t took an entire chapter to Phil to be sleeping, holding Lizzie’s hand, that was almost sleeping too. I stopped reading to give her a goodnight kiss, and she hold my arm with her other hand.

 

“Daddy, is mommy going to heaven as Nana Aly and Grandpa John?” Asked my sleepy little llama. Clary’s parents had died in a airplane crash a long time ago, but Lizzie knew about them. She knew that she wouldn’t meet them because they were in heaven, looking out for her. 

 

“I don’t know baby girl.” I didn’t want to lie to her. " But no matter what happens, mommy will always love you, and take care of you. Don’t you ever doubt that for even a second, okay Lizzie?” I said hugging her and kissing her forehead.

 

“Like you daddy?” 

 

“Yes, just like me. We will always take care of you.” I said with a single tear leaving my eye.

 

“I love you Daddy Bear.” Said her before falling asleep.

 

“I love you too Baby Llama.” I answer, leaving the bed, trying not to wake her or Phil up. Phil had a long day, and were probably almost sleeping when my mom called him, so I was fine with him crashing in my bed for tonight, after all, he was always here for me, and no one deserves the bunk bed in the spare room.   
  
  


I went down stairs to talk to my mom, who gave me all the infos about Clary’s accident. She was driving back from work to my parents house to pick up Lizzie, and a truck crashed face first on her. She had three respiratory fails since the accident, half of her bones were broken, and she was covered in plasters and bruises, the doctors didn’t have much hope for her. Only a miracle would save her life. To hear that from my mom, it was hard. Clary wasn’t the love of my life, but she was one of my best friends, she was the mom of my daughter, she was an amazing woman and an even better mom, I was shocked in how bed things always happens to good people. Mom left to the hospital, so dad could come rest, and I went straight to my room. I was so emotionally tired that I didn’t feel like changing into my pjs, so I took my jeans off and joined Lizzie and Phil in the bed. 

 

Looking at my girl’s face, just like her mom, I let all the tears that I was holding crash down my face. After a couple of minutes I felt a hand reaching for mine. I looked up and Phil was looking at me, offering his hand over Lizzie’s pillow. I reached for his hand, and used his support to be strong. Strong for my little girl, strong for my family.


	2. A weird night

 

**Dan’s POV**

 

I have always been very lucky on the “new parent” department. First of all, Lizzie didn’t cry at night. She wouldn’t sleep until 3 am, but she wouldn’t cry either. For the first few months after she was born, I would sleep at Clary’s, to take care of her in the middle of the night, since I wouldn’t sleep early either. It was hard because of the fans, Phil and I had to pretend to be living together, but we weren’t for 90% of the time. I always thought that we were too lucky, that one day we would be sleeping at 4am and she would wake up screaming and wouldn’t stop until noon, but that was never the case. After she grew up, she never gave us hard time either. I moved to London when she was really small, so she was used to talk to me most of the time trough facetime and skype, and I would make sure to come home to her every few months and on Christmas. For her last two birthdays I wasn’t able to be here for her, because of radio show and live show, but we always made sure to celebrate it in a big way, and I was present online. She is fine with that. She is a really smart girl that understands the world around her, and that makes me one of the luckiest person in the world. Except for today. 

 

 

“MOMMY! COME BACK MOMMY!” Screamed Lizzie, waking up Phil and I. I got up really quick and grabbed my daughter that was sobbing crying sitting on the bed in the middle of Phil and I. 

 

 

“Hey, hey, baby girl, whats wrong?” I asked her, pulling her to my chest so she could sit on my lap. 

 

 

“Daddy! I don’t want you, I want mommy.” Cried her, trying to leave my embrace. I let her go, and she kneels in the bed, looking for something. “Where is Miss Llama? I want Miss Llama, mommy gave me Miss Llama for when she is not with me. Where is it daddy?” 

 

 

“I think I saw it downstairs, I’ll go look for it, okay?” Said Phil, getting up. I should be feeling bad for Lizzie waking him up, but I was just worried about the fact that she didn’t want me.

 

 

“Phil is going to bring your llama, baby girl. Come back here.” I say, opening my arms, waiting Lizzie to come back to me, she waits for a few seconds, and give up, coming back to my embrace. “What is wrong? Did you have a bad dream? ” I ask, worried. She agrees with her head. “Want to tell me what happened? Maybe daddy can help you.” 

 

 

“Mommy was telling me that she had to go, she looked beautiful, she had big white wings and a flower crown, but she was walking away, and leaving me behind. I wanted to go with her, but she wouldn’t take me. She said that I should stay with you, that one day she would come back to pick me up. Where is mommy going?” She asks, sobbing. My brain was still trying to wrap around something to answer to my 4 years old daughter that wouldn’t hurt her feelings, and Phil came back to the room, with a small yellow teddy llama, and gave to Elizabeth. “Thank you Uncle Philly.” 

 

 

“No problem baby girl, I think Miss Llama was feeling lonely downstairs, she was on the couch by herself.” Said Phil, sitting on the edge of one side the bed. I noticed that he still had his jeans, and lenses on, he was not ready to sleep when we went to bed. 

 

 

“Miss Llama doesn’t like to be alone.” Agreed Lizzie, putting her head on my chest, leaning on my, hugging the teddy. “Where is mommy, uncle Philly?” Asked her, turning her big brown eyes to my best friend. Phil looked at me, asking with his eyes for some help to answer that. 

 

 

“She is in the hospital, remember? I told you that she is sick, and she has to stay there for a few days, like you when you had your tummy ache. “ I answer quick, saving Phil from the question. 

 

 

“And she is going to have a lot of jelly, right?” Asks her, starting to fall asleep again.

 

 

“Yes, she is going to have a lot of jelly, just like us tomorrow.” I answer, laying down with her still wrapped in my arms. 

 

 

“Can uncle Philly have jelly with us too?” Is the last thing she says before falling asleep again.

 

 

“If he wants to.” I answer, looking at Phil. He is staring at the two of us, wrapped around each other, laying in the middle of the bed. He agrees with his head and smile at us. Phil wouldn’t say no to jelly, he is addicted to it. 

 

 

“Thank you for picking up her teddy bear, I’m sorry she woke  you up.” I say after a while we were just staring at each other and Lizzie sleeping. “You know that I never wanted to suck you into this whole thing, but thank you for always being around me, around us, to help.” 

 

 

“You don’t have to apologize or thank me Dan, in the minute she wrapped her little fingers around my hand the day she was born and you put her in my arms I was done too. I know it’s kinda weird and messed up, but I sometimes feel like she is a little piece of me too. You know I would do anything to protect her. You are my best friend, and you, Clary, and even me, we were all basically kids when she was born, we hold on to each other, to make her life better. Or you really think I would let you destroy this little girl’s life with swearing, cheese, Kanye West, and High School Musical? Someone had to teach her how to eat dry cereal from the box and give her a hamster so she can breed them and make some money in middle school.” 

 

 

“You are not giving a hamster to my daughter.” I say, meaning it.   
  
  
  
“Oh common, she lives in a house, she can have a hamster, there is no landlord to say she can’t.” Jokes Phil, smiling with her tongue poking to one side. 

 

 

“The landlord is not the problem Phil! Those animals have souls too! How would you feel if you were trapped on a cage running in a wheel for the rest of your life?”

 

 

“Well, maybe we are! Maybe we are trapped in this wheel, doing the same thing over and over again, while aliens observes us and make notes about our behavior, and one day they will take us out of this meaningless life circle and gives a purpose in life.”

 

 

“See! Even you agree that a life on a cage is meaningless. No more discussion here, you are not giving a hamster to my daughter.” I say, pulling Lizzie closer to me, and grabbing my phone to check the time. “You should change, its only 2am, its not gonna be comfortable to sleep in jeans for the whole night. You can use my bathroom if you want, there are some pj’s pants on the top drawer if you didn’t bring any.” I say, noticing that he is still in the same spot, sited in the corner of the bed, looking completely uncomfortable.

 

 

“Thank you daddy.” Joked Phil. It was probably supposed to sound like a joke, about the way Lizzie calls me, but it kinda sounded dirty and Phil noticed it, leaving the bed laughing at me. I grabbed his pillow and threw it across the room, hitting him in the head. “Fuck Dan!” Screamed Phil, covering his mouth when he noticed what he had said, and that he had screamed and almost woke up Lizzie.

 

 

 

“Mind your language around my daughter, Mr. I-don’t-swear-Lester.” I say, trying to sound serious, but laughing at him too. Phil grabbed a pj on the top drawer and was leaving the room. 

 

 

“Where are you going?”

 

 

“To the spare room, to sleep. Its 2am, some of us actually like to sleep before 4am.” 

 

 

“The spare room sucks. Dad didn’t have time to pick up the big mattress from the storage room, the bunk-bed barely fits a kid on it, and the sheets are probably old and dirty. You can stay here with me, this bed probably fits 5 of us, and Lizzie will feel better to wake up with you here.” None of these reasons were a lie, but they weren’t the only reason why Dan wanted Phil there. With everything happening, Dan was not feeling very well himself, he needed support, and Phil was his best friend, the person he trusted the most in his life. “I will feel better with you here. Please?” 

 

 

“Okaaay…” Answered him rolling his eyes, but I knew that inside he was glad to be able to help. “Hey, why can you sleep in t-shit and boxers and I have to put pjs on?”

 

 

“Well, you don’t have to, I just though you would like too. My mom always burst into the room in the middle of the morning to wake Lizzie up for breakfast, but it’s not like she is not used to walk on me half naked with someone in my bed. That sounded weird, ignore that. The thing is, is up to you, just please don’t sleep naked around my daughter, I’m trying to keep her mind pure until she is at least 15.” 

 

 

“Isn’t 15 a little too young yet? Most parents want to keep their kids pure until 21.” Says Phil, taking his pants off in the middle of the room, we were both used to each other walking only in our boxers around the house, so there was no problem there. 

 

 

“We live in the 21st century Phil, its rare to find 13 years old that have never read smut fan fiction in life before. I am not that antiquate.” I comment, trying to readjust myself in the bed, to make more comfortable to my little girl to fit in the arc between my arm and chest. “Why are you putting my pjs pants on?” I ask, while he tries to fit his leg into the pants leg without holding anywhere and trying not to fall. He fails miserably and falls butt first in the floor. I try to hold my laugh, so I wont wake up anyone in the house, and almost fail at it, but I was able to control because of Lizzie shifting in my arms. 

 

 

“You might be used to your mom walking into your room with you naked in the bed with people, but I prefer to be dressed if aliens decide to abduct me in the middle of the night for experiments, thank you.” Answers him, siting on the floor, finishing to put clothes on. Phil stands up and goes to his bag, to get his glasses from his backpack and moves to the bathroom to take his lenses off. A few minutes after he climbs back in the bed with his glasses on. “You never told me how Clary is actually doing. Did you talk to your mom after we felt asleep?” 

 

 

“Yes, I did.” I said, checking Lizzie to be sure she was asleep before continuing. “She has tons of broken bones, a lot of bruises on, and a lot of trouble breathing. She is surviving only trough machines basically. Mom didn’t have much info to give me, but the final word I have is that the doctors don’t believe that is much more they can do, and only a miracle can save her. I am scared. With all this info, and this crazy feelings and dreams Lizzie is having with Clary, I don’t know if there is any hope at all for her. Kids are weird mate, they feel things we don’t feel, they know things we don’t know, and I am really scared that we are going to loose Clarisse.” I said, trying to control my breathing, so i wouldn’t cry. Phil pushed himself closer to me and Lizzie and hold my hand that was around my daughter’s body. “I’m scared of what happens after. I know Riley won’t try to take Lizzie from me, and I know that mom and dad would totally take care of her, raise her, but I can’t let them do that. I can’t let Lizzie loose her mom and live without both of us through her whole childhood. But at the same time I can’t just push her into our lives, and let her grow up in the craziness of youtube and radio shows. I don’t know what to do.” By now I am not able to control the crying anymore, and tears are falling down my face.

 

 

“Hey, Dan, don’t worry about it. Not now. We don’t know what is going to happen. Maybe a miracle is going to happen and Clary will be fine by next week, running around their garden, playing in the snow. We never know. And if it comes to it, you won’t have to take care of Lizzie by yourself. You have me, you have your mom, and we have our friends. I know that putting Lizzie into the world of youtube is scary and crazy, but maybe its going to be good for her. If she is surrounded by the amazing friends that we have, maybe she will be okay. We don’t have to introduce her to our fans, not now, but we can introduce her to our friends, and she will be loved by everyone. She got us wrapped in her little hands, she will have them all around her fingers in seconds. Maybe you are too worried about protecting her from the world, that you don’t see that you are excluding her from it. She needs more human interaction, and if she looses her mom, she will need more people around to love and protect her. It will be fine Dan, everything will be okay. You will see.” Said Phil, hugging me - and Lizzie that was between us - with one arm, in the bed.

 

 

Phil had one point, even if I didn’t want to look at it and consider it for a while, it kinda made sense. For the moment I just wanted to sleep and forget, to have a few hours to live in the world of dreams, on the highest clouds in the sky, or diving on the deep waters of the ocean. Away from life, away from responsibilities. And I felt the sleep coming to me, in the warmth of Lizzie and Phil’s arms. 

 

 

I dreamed about PlaylistLive, about having my friends around me, but it was different this time. Me, Phil and Louise were sitting on a couch, on the backstage, watching Lizzie, Darcy, Emilia and Eduardo running around us, having fun.  Everyone else was there too. Zoe and Alfie, Joe, Caspar, Jim, Tanya, Marcus, Tyler, Cat, Connor, Troye, everyone was around, watching the kids, laughing with us. Lizzie was happy, on her black dress and green boots, she was loving it. It made me happy, it made me feel better.

 

 

I woke up feeling a lot better about life, than when I went to sleep. I might have been because of the good dream I had about my daughter and my friends, or because I woke up having my baby girl and Phil around my arms. Mine and Phil’s relationship has always been kinda of a messy “we don’t talk about it” thing, but has always worked perfectly for us. We never get too worried about getting too touchy with each other, or being too needing of each other, and we never had problems with our friendship level. Everything always worked pretty fine between us, and that was the beauty of it. In the end we were family, no other labels needed in the middle of it.

 

 

Lizzie started to move around a little bit, trying to leave our embrace, waking up. I knew my mom was 5 minutes from crashing into our room, and she would have some things to talk about the way me and Phil where crushing Lizzie in the middle of us, but I didn’t care. I needed them close to me, so I could survive trough this day.

 

 

“Good morning baby llama.” I whispered quietly to my girl, trying no to wake Phil up, in the end it was just 9am, and he deserved more sleep time. I was worried about how Lizzie would be feeling today, on how she was going to be dealing with everything this morning, so I tried to give her space to wake up and think a little bit, and let her answer me when she was ready. 

 

 

“Good morning daddy bear.” Answered her, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “I’m hungry daddy, can we have jelly for breakfast, like mommy?” And there she was, strong, happy, cute as always. I don’t know what I did to deserve such an amazing kid, but I was happy for her existence. 

 

 

“I am not sure if we can. Lets go ask grandma what she did for breakfast, should we?” I ask, trying to get up without waking Phil up. After being successful on it, I took my daughter out of the bed and moved us to the restroom, so we could brush our teeth. All done and she just run out of the room, looking for grandma, really excited about the day. 

 

 

“DADDY! Grandma made cereal! Come eat with me!” Screamed my little girl from downstairs, waking up Phil.

 

 

“Good morning sleeping beauty. Breakfast is ready. We should go eat, I want to go to the hospital before it gets too crazy and people are able to recognize us.” I say, trying to fiz my hobbit hair in the mirror. 

 

 

“I’ll be down in a sec, just need to put some clothes on.” He said leaving the bed and facing me on the mirror. Phil was always able to see trough my eyes into my soul. “Everything will be okay Dan, we will go through this together, I promise you.” And with those words, he made my morning even better, and I was good to leave my room and face reality again. I was ready to face my daughter’s mom, and decide our future. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

**Dan’s POV**

 

Do you know how some kids just dream about working in a hospital when they grow up? To be doctors, and nurses, and save lives? That wasn’t me. I’ve never been a fan of hospitals in my life. The only time that I was happy for being in a hospital was when Elizabeth was born, completely different reason from the one that is making me walk into another one of these buildings now. We were supposed to drive to the hospital before 10am three days ago, but since Lizzie never went to school, and she was not dealing well with the fact that her mom wasn’t with her after she had some jelly after lunch, we never found a time to leave the house. I didn’t want to leave her side for a few days, and I wasn’t ready to see Clary yet. But today I need to run away from Lizzie a bit and do it. It was already 3pm when Lizzie went for a nap, so when we got to the hospital, the building was completely full of people. All ages, all genders, people from all different places in the county, here for a lot of different reasons, that would make mine and Phil’s presence almost impossible to hide since the odds of someone recognizing us or from BBC or from Youtube were big, and the last thing that I need today is having to deal with fans and questions I couldn’t answer in life. 

 

Phil realized the same thing as me as soon as we stepped into the attendance room, we needed to sort things out quick, before someone noticed the two giant nerds that stepped into the hospital, so we got to the information’s table, grabbed our visitor’s batches to Clary’s room, and basically run out of it as soon as possible, reaching for the lift. A girl in the corner of the room wearing a Pokémon shirt and headphones might have noticed us, but the door closed before her brain was able to identify who we were. At least we hope it did. 

 

 

“I love our job, I hate not having privacy in life.” I make sure to comment to Phil, once we are safe in the lift.

 

 

“I know the feeling. Talking about feelings, are you sure you are ready for this?” 

 

 

“I have to be. I need to see her by myself or I won’t be able to completely understand her state, and I have to do this for Lizzie. Mum called Dr. Johnson for me, he is going to be waiting on us, so he can explain everything.” I answer, looking up to the lights in the elevator. I turn my head down and look into his face, before continuing my sentence. “Thank you for coming with me, I don’t know if I was going to be able to get into this lift if I was by myself.”

 

 

“I’ve told you this hundreds of times, I will say it again, you don’t have to thank me for anything, you are my best friend, the most important person in my life, I would never leave you alone to deal with this.” He says back, placing a hand in my shoulder, to show his support. I was more grateful to Phil than anything or anyone else in life. The doors opened to a hall full of glass doors leading to different rooms filled with patients. We walked side by side until the second to last door on the left, where a Doctor was standing, checking some files. “Excuse-me, are you Dr. Johnson?” Asked Phil once we got close enough, my voice was trapped in my throat, like I couldn’t speak or breath.

 

 

“That would be me.” Answered the young looking doctor, smiling. “And you must be Mr. Howell.” Said him offering a hand. 

 

 

“Phil Lester actually, this is Dan Howell.” The doctor complimented both of us, and I still wasn’t able to put words out of my mouth. “You have to excuse us, this is really hard for both of us.” Apologized Phil, for my behavior, making me feel a little bit guilty.

 

 

“No problem, I understand that this is a hard moment for family and friends. Is one of you her boyfriend, or husband? Her file has a blank on the relationship status, I’m just trying to put the pieces together.” 

 

 

“I was. Long story short, she is the mother of my daughter. Can we see her?” I finally ask, reaching for my husky worried voice. 

 

 

“Yes, I just have to make sure you two know that her situation is complicated and you can’t stay long in the room, and it might be hard to see her in her state.” He says, looking at both of us, that agree with the head. “Okay, you can follow me.” 

 

 

Dr. Johnson opens the door behind him, and reaches inside the room, followed by Phil and I. For a moment our eyes are trying to get used to the blue-ish lights of the room, that are more calming and dark than the outside corridors, and after a second we were able to see her.

 

 

It felt like my diafragma was being punched, over and over again, really hard. Every inch of her arms and legs were covered in plasters, her face was half covered by a big bandage, and the other side had bruises on it. Her closed eyes had really big purple circles around them, giving the whole scenario an extra hard to look image. When Lizzie was around 4 months old, we realized that she had Clary’s nose, her mouth, but my eyes. We were really happy about it, because my nose was not a feature that I wanted to pass to my baby daughter, and Clary’s heart-shapped lips were perfect. Now looking at Clary, I couldn’t see Lizzie in her at all. Her nose was broken, for sure, her lips had cuts on it, her face was destroyed. I didn’t want to look, at the same time I couldn’t stop my eyes from wandering around trying to scan Clary to see all the damage. The tubs coming in and out of her body were distracting, she had one for each little thing. She was connected to at least six machines in the room, and this didn’t mean a good thing. 

 

 

“What is the veredict?” Asked Phil, knowing that I wasn’t going to be able to talk much, my eyes were still wandering trough the room.

 

 

“There is nothing much we can do for her. She has several broken bones, including a few ribs that we had to fix before the pieces hurt her organs, tons of bruises, some internal bleeding that we’ve had to fix last night again, but it can come back. She was hit in the head really bad, she has some blood accumulated in her brain, but she is no conditions to pass trough another surgery for at least 24h. Right now her brain is working really badly and the machines are doing the rest of the job, we can’t say for sure how long it will take for her to recover, of if she will recover. Once we drain the blood in her head thats it, she has to do it in her own time. If her body fails, the machine will do the job, but if her brain fails, there is nothing we can do. I’m really sorry Mr. Howell, and Mr. Lester, but she is on her own.”

 

 

She is on her own. There is nothing much we can do for her. If her body fails. If her brain fails. All these sentences kept coming into my head, moving around in my brain, for hours after we left the hospital. I was in no conditions to face Lizzie, so Phil took me out to a park, so we could feel the fresh air, and try to figure things out. Phil’s voice woke me up from my transe. 

 

 

“I’m sorry, I don’t think he is in good conditions right now for pictures.” I heard Phil saying, and that caught my attention, so I turn my head to him, and he is standing next to a girl. She was probably around 16 years old, short blue hair, in a plaid shirt, some piercings in her face, and she had a nice calming smile in her face.

 

 

“Thats okay, I hope you guys feel better, don’t worry, I won’t tell people that I’ve met you two here. Bye guys.” She said turning her back to us, a little bit sad, but comprehensive. I looked at Phil questioning him wtf just happened. 

 

 

“She is a fan, I took a picture with her and told her that you are not in conditions for pictures right now, she understood. Don’t worry about it.” He said sitting back down. I went trough the options in my brain, and stand up. “What are you doing? Do you wanna leave? That is probably a good idea.”

 

 

“No, actually yes, I want to leave, but first I will take a picture with her.” I say starting to chasing the girl. “Hey, girl.” I say trying to get her attention, she looks back at me and stop. “What’s your name?”

 

 

“Sarah. Hi.” 

 

 

“Hey Sarah, I’ve heard that you wanted a picture, still want it?” I ask, trying to smile.

 

 

“No, thats okay Dan, don’t worry about it, I can see that you are not doing very good, we all saw that you received bad news during the last live show, we understand that you need space, I just had to try, but you don’t have to worry about me, just worry about getting better and dealing with whatever is hurting you, I will be fine.” She was being serious, and that shocked Dan. Very rarely a fan would refuse a picture with them, that was actually the first time. The consideration that she had for him made him smile.

 

 

“Really, that is not a problem, I’ll be okay, just take your picture, Phil can take it for us, can’t you Phil?” I say to my friend standing next to me. He agreed.

 

 

“Are you sure? I feel bad for disturbing you.”

 

 

“Yes, I’m sure, and you didn’t, you probably just saved me from an existencial crisis, so I owe you this one. Just give your camera to Phil.” I say opening my arms, waiting for the hug. I always loved hugs, and differently from what some people though of me, I always loved meeting my fans, no matter in what social situation. Sarah had bad timing, but it was probably her only chance, so I couldn’t do that to her. She gave the phone to Phil, hugged me, and we took a couple of pictures together. 

 

 

“Thank you so much guys, I hope everything works out for you two and whatever is bothering you. I promise I wont post these pictures for a few days, so you don’t have to deal with people coming to the city to search for you. If you need a place to hide, my mom owns a flower shop just at the end of this road, we have a beautiful garden in the back, that is private, you can use anytime. See you around.” She said, grabbing her phone and leaving me and Phil alone in the middle of the park. Our fans never ceased on surprising us. In the middle of thousands of crazy ones, there is always a Sarah. 

 

 

“We should head home. We got really lucky with her, I don’t expect the next one to be that comprehensive.“

 

 

"We should. Lizzie is waiting on us.” I remembered, getting worried again. “What am I gonna tell her next time she asks for her mom?” I ask with the pain in my voice. Phil hold my arm and looked at me.

 

 

“You’re gonna tell her that her mom is a fighter, that she is fighting hard to come back to her, and until then she is going to be staying with Uncle Phily and her dad in London. We can’t stay here longer, we have tons of things to deal with, and I know we should take a break, but even for us to take a break we will need to go to meetings and plan things. Its time to show your daughter where her daddy lives.” Said Phil smiling. 

 

 

“Stop calling me daddy. It’s creepy.” I said, trying to ignore what he just said. Deep down I knew I would have to go back home soon. And I knew I wasn’t going to be able to leave Lizzie with my mom because she needed me around to sleep. I knew it was time to collide both of my lives together, I just didn’t knew how. 

 

 

“Its only creepy if you act weird because of it.” Commented Phil a few minutes later, I couldn’t follow what he was saying because my brain was flying around life and future possibilities. He saw the confusion in my eyes. “Me calling you daddy. Its only weird if you make it weird. I only mean that you are Lizzie’s dad. If you think something else the problem is in your dirty mind, not in my words.” He points it out. 

 

 

“Phil stop, you are a 29 years old man calling your best male friend ‘daddy’. I am sorry if my mind goes straight to the gutter, I can’t control it. People over 16 years old should never call someone daddy outside of the bedroom, I’m sorry.” 

 

 

“Okay Dan, I’ll stop calling you daddy on the streets, I’ll save it for later.” He joked, making me smile. In the end Phil is just a kid in a body of a man. “When are we going back to London? Louise sent me a text asking what is happening that we went MIA, and people is starting to worry about us. We are supposed to be on BBC tomorrow 11am for a meeting because of the tour dates and the radio show dates. I can try to post pond the meeting, but we can’t keep pushing our lives further, we don’t know when Clary is going to wake up, we can’t stay here waiting. I could go by myself to the meetings we have this week, but you know how awkward we are with these things, I don’t think I would survive alone.”

 

 

“I know, we should leave tonight. I just don’t know how to explain to Lizzie that we are taking her with us and everything else…” 

 

 

“I don’t think you need to worry that much about her, she is gonna be fine, there is enough Pokémon plush toys and fun little things around the apartment for her to be entertained for weeks.”

 

 

“Our house is a playground for kids, that is certain. I’m a 24 years old man, that lives in his childhood dream house making videos for the internet. What is my life?” 

 

 

“Our life is the paradise of aliens and futuristic humanoids. A sacred ground for future archeologists from another planets. Our legacy for the universe.”

 

 

“I thought our book was our legacy to the universe.” 

 

 

“Well, that too, but kids from the future won’t have much fun with our book, they will have mentally-controlled toys to play with, books won’t be a thing.”

 

 

“Mentally-controlled toys? Like they won’t need to touch the toys to make it move? You are saying that kids from the future are going to be telekinetic?” 

 

 

“Yes! That is why I am waiting to have kids, you know, I want them to have the best in life. There is no better life to live than a telekinetic life. Not needing to get up to do things.” 

 

 

“A happy and very lazy life indeed. Future goals tbh. Anyways, we are going out of the track here, we need to go home, pack, and convince Lizzie that our life is fun and she can join us on it. That is not gonna happen.” 

 

 

“Yes it will, let me deal with it, don’t worry about it. She loves Uncle Philly, she will be fine. Now lets, go, we can discuss the rest of the things once they come up to us. I’m hungry and I think we are out of cereal in the apartment, we need to go grocery shopping after we go back to London, we can’t leave late.“

 

 

“You mean that I’m out of cereal because YOU ate them all. You still have your own cereal in the house, closed box, you can eat it. And I am not going grocery shopping with Lizzie in London, I’m sorry but that is not gonna happen. We can order things in.”

 

 

“Lizzie in London, sounds like a good movie title.” 

 

 

“No, it doesn’t, shut up. Lets go.” I finally say, asking for a taxi to stop so we can go back to my parent’s place. When we finally open the door to the house, everything is silent and dark, like nobody is home. “MUM? LIZZIE? Where the heck are you?” I scream around, searching for them, my mum shows up on the top of the stairs, jump scaring us with a scream. "Jesus on a freaking bicycle mum! You wanted to give us a heart attack? Just shoot us if you wanna kill us, its quicker and less painful.” I say, trying to catch my breath back, Phil is in a similar state of mine, and my mom is laughing her ass off getting down the stairs. “Where is my daughter?”

 

 

“Your daughter… You know, it has been 4 years, and I never got used to you saying this. Is not like you say it a lot though, I know its hard to pretend that she doesn’t exist for 80% of your time, and it feels good to see you so attached to her whenever you are here. I feel like the proudest mom ever. I wasn’t very proud of you when you finally told me, and I was mad, but you know, your baby having a baby when they are 20 years old its not what a mom dreams. But you dealt so well with everything, you were such and adult after the moment you decided to be a part of her life, that you just made this entire family brighter, better. I know that you are dealing with a hard time, we all are, but you are so amazing - just like Phil ;) - and strong all the time, it feels like you are ready for anything and everything that life gives you. That is the thing that every mom whats for their children. That is what I wanted for you. And I don’t think I tell you enough how much I love you, and how proud of you I am. You are one of the most important man in my life, and its weird to call you a man, but you have been an adult for over 4 years now, and I have to deal with it. I just wanted to say that, I love hearing you calling her daughter, it makes my heart beat faster, we are all dying, but we are all having an amazing life.” Said her, finishing getting down the stairs and hugging me. I felt a few tears slipping down my face, I needed that certainty that I was doing the right thing, that I was on the right path, and my mom somehow knew it. "Your baby girl, that we all love so much, and that is also very proud of her daddy and always in love with him, is out with other man of my life, having some ice cream. They will be home in a few minutes. I have to start preparing dinner, what you two boys want to have tonight?”

 

 

“Actually Mrs. Howell, we are going back to London tonight. Dan and I have some things to deal back home, and we figured out that we should do it sooner rather than later.” Answered Phil, while I was still hugging my mom.

 

 

“I’ve told you hundreds of times Phil, you don’t have to call me Mrs. Howell, you can call me by my name, or mom, I consider you part of the family too, you are also one of the man of my life, even if you didn’t ask for it.” She said, getting one arm released from my hug and offering to Phil, so he could join our embrace, and he did. “You two are so big, like really, I love hugging the two of you, but I feel like the kid here.” She said laughing, making us laugh. “What are you doing about Lizzie? I don’t think she will stay here happily without you and Clary. I know you have to go though…”

 

 

“We are taking her. I though about it the whole day, and its time for her to meet my life. I will still protect her from the fans for as long as possible, but I don’t think I will be okay there without her either. I will introduce her to some of our closest friends, the ones that I trust to keep her in secret, and we will work things out until Clary is okay.” I say leaving their embrace. “I’m just gonna wait until she comes back, I’ll tell her everything, we will go to Clary’s place to pack her stuff and we will leave from there, straight home. I hope she is okay with it, its gonna be really hard if she is not.”

 

 

“She loves you, and I am pretty sure she won’t have a single problem with traveling with daddy for a few weeks. Now, you two should go pack your stuff then, they will be here any second.” Moms says, pointing upstairs, making clear that we should go up and pack. Phil and I move to my room and start looking for things all over the place. In the end, Dad never picked up the mattress from the storage room for Phil, and we never asked for it. We were comfortable sharing the bed, with Lizzie between us, so we could all comfort each other. My family never talked about it, we didn’t talk about it, we were just fine with it. Phil and I were just closing our bags when my little bay girl came running into the room and jumped on me.

 

 

“DADDY!!!! Grandma told me we are going to travel! I love traveling! Are we going to see the elephants with Grand-nana again?” She asks, very excited. Last time we went to India, Lizzie had a blast. She was so excited with the elephants that she didn’t even wanted to go anywhere else, just stay in their sanctuary. She was a very smart 3-years-old. 

 

 

“Not this time Baby Llama, this time I am taking you somewhere that you’ve never been, but have asked me about it a few times. Can you guess where it is?” I pick her up in my arms, smiling at her. It was hard not to smile to her beautiful happy face.

 

 

“Disneyland? You said that you are only taking me there when I’m 10!” She sounds even more excited than before, and I feel bad for crushing her dreams.

 

 

“No, not Disneyland, we are going there in your tenth birthday as promised. We are going to daddy’s and uncle Phil’s house!” 

 

 

“In London?” She sounds uncertain about it.

 

 

“Yes, in London, where me and uncle Phil work and live. You asked me to take you there, but I couldn’t before, and now we can! Do you wanna go?”

 

 

“YES! Can I take Miss Llama with me?” She sounds happy, and then worried about her favorite toy.

 

 

“Of course Miss Llama will go with us, we can’t go to London and leave her behind, right?” 

 

 

“Right! Is mommy coming too?” She asks, quieter. For the past two days she sounds sad when talking about Clary, missing her for sure.

 

 

“No, mommy has to stay in the hospital until she gets better, but we will come visit her if you miss her too much, okay?” I say, and she hugs me, agreeing with her head. “Now lets go say bye to everyone and give Colin a kiss, so we can pick your stuff and get ready to leave.” I put her on the floor, and she runs out of the room, going downstairs to find our family dog, that was probably running on the backyard, or sleeping on the couch. Phil picks his bag, and I grab mine, we look to each other and agree to go, leaving my room behind. 

 

 

It feels weird to be back in Clary’s house. It hasn’t been that long before I was there, but it felt like some of it’s soul was missing. All the big pictures of her and Lizzie around the house made me feel strange, like life would never be like that for them again. I shake my head trying to get that though out of my mind, and grab a picture of the three of us, that is behind a few other pictures over the fireplace. It was from Clary’s last birthday party, just a few months ago. I was able to find a spot in my calendar to come and be with them, and we had tons of fun. Since Lizzie’s first birthday party, every birthday in the family was celebrated in a “kids party” theme, so we had ball pools, trampolines, and bouncy castles for Clary’s 23rd birthday. We are all happy, smiling, laying on the floor of the bouncy castle, the three of us plus Colin, and it is one of my favorite pictures ever. I put the picture in my backpack, and follow my kid to her room.

 

 

She goes though her stuff, trying to choose her favorite toys and shoes and dresses, while I pack all the necessary stuff. I always liked to give her a free will to choose whatever she likes, and ended up that her favorite dress is a black dress, and her favorite shoe is a fluorescent green boot that Phil’s mom gave her. In the end, her life is being molded by being around us, even if its mainly by facetime. We pick her bags, all her favorite stuffs, close the entire house, and leave in an uber, ready to face London and all that this new chapter of life is gonna bring us.

 

 

“I just talked to Louise, I figured out that we are gonna need a babysit for Lizzie tomorrow, during our meeting, and Louise is the most qualified person we know to do this job and keep quiet about it. Are you ready to introduce her to the world?” Asks Phil, making sure to look straight into my face.

 

 

“Not even a little bit. Louise is gonna hate me for never telling her about Lizzie.” I answer, scared.

 

 

“She is gonna love Lizzie and her fashion sense. Don’t worry about it. Anyway, Darcy is with Matt this week, so we don’t have to worry about they meeting and Darcy talking about Lizzie in a video by mistake, we can deal with that later.” He says, and I notice the “we” in his voice, and it gives me a feeling that everything is gonna be okay, because I’m never alone in this life.

 

 

“Thank you.” I say, and he knows I’m not talking about Louise, or Darcy, or future videos. 

 

 

“I have your back mate, don’t worry.” 

 

 

“I know. Lets do this.”

 

 

“Lets do this.” He agrees, and we hold hands over Lizzie’s car seat. Life was about to get really complicated.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Dan’s POV**

 

Lizzie slept trough the whole way from her house to mine. She didn’t wake up when we got home either, what made my life and Phil’s really hard. We had to go upstairs with her, her car seat, all her bags and our bags. It wasn’t very easy. Elizabeth was probably very tired because of the day she had out with my family, and I didn’t think she would wake up for a few more hours, so I placed her in my bed, and left the door of the room open, just in case she woke up in a strange room and panicked. Phil and I placed her stuffs in my room, and moved to the lounge to talk and wait for Louise.

 

 

“She said that she will be here in 20 minutes, and if we want to order pizzas she wants a medium pepperoni.” Said Phil, falling on the couch. “Outch! Bloody hell, I landed on our remote control.” He said, taking a remote control from under his ass. 

 

 

“And the destruction of the “Dan and Phil apartment” continues.”

 

 

“Technically I am not destructing the apartment, I am destructing our remote control.”

 

 

“Technically, that is part of our house and our stuffs. Do you want to watch ‘Magi’ until she arrives? I need to distract myself before what I have to do tonight.”

 

 

“You sound like you are going to kill a puppy, you’re just gonna tell Louise that Lizzie exists. Its not that hard. She is not gonna kill you.”

 

 

“She is gonna feel betrayed and hurt. I just hope she understands the reasons behind me not telling her.”

 

 

“Louise has a 4 years old too. And she knows that our fans are worse than hers. I’m sure she will understand. Now to a more urgent matter. Which pizza do you want?”

 

 

“Such urgency. Just a pepperoni will be fine. Get some chicken for Lizzie and a coke. I will put an episode of Magi for us while you order. My wallet is in my backpack in the room, you can grab money there.”

 

 

We watched an entire episode of Magi before our doorbells ringed. My heart skipped a beat, I started sweating and I didn’t feel ready for her reaction. Phil went downstairs to open the door for Louise, while I checked Lizzie to make sure she was going to sleep trough the hard part of tonight’s conversations. 

 

 

“… I told him that I don’t care if its his weekend, its her birthday and I will be doing a princess themed party with all her friends and Zoe. So I’m giving him a few weekdays so we can eqilibrate the weekend she wont go to his place in April.” I hear Louise talking coming upstairs and I go meet her. “I swear to God, I don’t know how you two deal with these stairs inside… DAN!” She sees me and rushes upstairs for a hug.

 

 

“Hey Louise, I missed you too.” I say, happy to see her again. Louise is one of my best friends, and that makes what I have to do a lot harder.

 

 

“Phil said that you guys have something important to tell me. I am curious.”

 

 

 

“Its more like something I wanted to tell you, but yeah. I have no idea on how to start this.” I finish my sentence as soon as my doorbell rings again. “Pizza is here, I’ll go grab it.” I say running down the stairs. 

 

 

We sit on our lounge to eat, still silent, while I think on how to start the subject, and Phil notices that we dont have cups to drink the soda and goes pick it up. In less than a minute we hear a loud bang, the noise of glass breaking, and a loud scream coming from Phil. We run out to see what happened and notice that he smashed his face on the glass door of the kitchen coming out of it and dropped the three cups he had in his hand. I was about to ask if he was okay when a scream echoed in the house. 

 

 

“DADDY!” Cryied Lizzie running out of my room looking for me, running to my arms as soon as she found me.

 

 

“Hey baby girl, its okay, we arrived in Daddy’s house, you are okay. Uncle Phil was just being a walking disaster and made the noise that woke you up, its okay, you don’t need to cry.” I asure her, hugging her to make the crying stop. “Do you want Miss Llama? Lets go grab Miss Llama, so she wont feel alone.” We go back to my room, grab the plush toy and return to the kitchen area to check on Phil, and that is when my brain notices that Louise is standing next to the lounge door, watching me interacting with my daughter (that she didn’t knew that existed until 5 seconds ago) for the first time. Phil was nowhere to be seen.

 

 

 

“Is Phil okay?” I ask worried. 

 

 

“Yeah, he does have a cut in his hand, but I dont think its too big or deep. Who is this gorgeous little thing?” She asks looking at me kinda worried. 

 

 

 

“Louise, this is Elizabeth. Lizzie this is dad’s friend Louise.” Is say pointing at them. Lizzie is still quietly sobbing but nods at Louise. I take a deep breath before saying the next sentence. “Louise, this is the reason we brought you here today. Lizzie is my daughter.“

 

 

 

"Wait. What? Since when?” She sounds confused. 

 

 

 

“Since the day I found out that her mom was pregnant, I was the father and I decided to be her dad. Four years ago.” I explain, still standing in the middle of the corridor, afraid of Louise’s reaction. “I’m sorry I’ve never told you, is just that me and her mom, we decided that it was better for her to grow up away from the crazy life I have. That included absolutely no one from youtube knowing about her. Except from Phil, but it’s not like I could hide from him since we were living together when I found out and everything happened.” 

 

 

 

“Wait. You have a daughter that you’ve know of since forever, and in over 2 years of friendship you’ve never told me about her?” 

 

 

 

“I’m sorry, I am, I just couldn’t. You know how I hate my life being out in the open for everyone, and how I like to separate my family from youtube and everything. If I told anyone about her I would be breaking my own rules, and her mom’s rules. I couldn’t do that. You know how our fans are, they are nuts, I couldn’t let Lizzie grow up in the middle of screams and cameras. I know you have Darcy, and you’ve chosen to let her be a part of your channel, but my fans would probably eat Lizzie and Clary alive if they found them going to the market.” 

 

 

 

“And you know how the phandom gets when they have pictures of us with girls, can you imagine how they would act knowing that Dan has a daughter with a girl? They would probably explode.” Comment Phil, walking back into the lounge with a plaster in his hand. “Hey baby girl! Did you have a nice nap?” Asked my best friend, coming to get a quiet and shy Lizzie from my arms. “Why don’t we let daddy and Louise talk for a bit while I show you around the house, would you like that?” Lizzie agreed with her head, and went to Phil’s arms. “Let’s start with yours and daddy’s room!” He kinda scream jumping with her, making her laugh and me smile.

 

 

 

“He is great with her. You are too.” Commented Louise watching them leaving the room. “That kinda explains why you are so good with Darcy, and Emilia and Eduardo. Its just weird to imagine you as a parent. So the mom, Clary, why did you and her decided to let me know about Lizzie now? Are you going to introduce her to your audience? Are you getting married?Did you hide your relationship from me all this time too?” 

 

 

 

“NO! No, no, no, I’m not doing that, I am not getting married, no no, no way.” I make sure to leave this clear, Lizzie won’t be on my channel, and Clary wasn’t my girlfriend. “Its a bit more complicated than that Louise, lets seat.” I say offering her to seat on the sofa with me. “Me and Clary, we met at uni, we were great friends, but we’ve never been more than that. We got drunk and we just made a one night mistake. We continued life as friends, she found out that she was pregnant, and we decided to do this together. She doesn’t have parents, so she moved to Reading to live around mine when we moved to London because of youtube and the radio. I tried my best to be as present as possible in Lizzie’s life, we talk every week one the phone, we Facetime, I go to her parties, but I couldn’t bring her here. A few days ago Clary got involved in a accident. She is in a coma, in the hospital. I went back home to take care of Lizzie, and figure things out, to see how Clary was going, but I found out that we can only hope for a miracle.” I stop, trying to hold my tears. “She is one of my best friends Louise. She is the mother of my daughter, she is such a great woman, such a fighter. She has been raising Lizzie, studying, working, fighting for a future for her and our baby girl. I always told her that I could take care of them, but she only lets me help with Lizzie, she is amazing. When I saw her, in that state, I knew I couldn’t let youtube and my crazy life stop me for being with Lizzie now that she needs me more than ever. I own them this. So I brought Lizzie with me.” I can’t hold the tears anymore.

 

 

 

“Hey, Dan is okay, everything is going to be fine.” Says Louise, hugging me. “So Lizzie is staying here, until Clary is okay?” 

 

 

 

“Thats the idea. But me and Phil, we have so many things to do. I’ve been trying to cancel everything we can cancel, and call off other stuffs, but we still need to go to meetings and the radio show and stuffs. I can’t take Lizzie with me for these things, we can’t risk her being exposed. So Phil gave me the idea of calling you. I know I can’t ask you this, but you are my only choice Louise, I can’t call a nanny, if she is a fan everything goes down. I can’t ask my mom, she is staying on the hospital with Clary. I have no one else.” 

 

 

“And you don’t need anyone else, of course I’ll help you! Darcy will love having a new friend. I’ll have to explain her that she needs to keep Lizzie in secret, but she will be okay with that. She is great with secrets. So tell me, what do you need?” 

 

 

“Thank you Louise, you are amazing.” I say, hugging her tighter. “I need someone to watch her tomorrow, we have a meeting at BCC about the radio show and the tour. It will only take a couple of hours, I promise.” 

 

 

“Thats okay. We can have a girl’s day. Do you plan telling anyone else about her? I was supposed to call Zoe tomorrow, but I can wait until I get back home.”

 

 

“I don’t think I have much more choice. I will tell Zoe, Alfie, Peej, Felix and Marzia I guess, maybe some people that might come here while she is around. You can talk to Zoe, just let me call her first. I don’t have words enough to thank you Louise. Thank you for not hating me.” I say, cuddling on her, like a kid. 

 

 

“I would never hate you for putting such a beautiful kid in the world.” Louise say, at the same time my baby girl runs into the room with a Pikachu in her hands. 

 

 

“Daddy! Look! Uncle Philly game me another Pikachu! One more for my collection.” Said Lizzie jumping on me, on the couch.

 

 

“That is great baby girl, maybe we should tell uncle Phil that he is not supposed to be giving away all his stuffed toys to you while you are here because you can’t fit them anymore in your house.” I answer, fitting her better in the couch next to me and Louise.

 

 

“OMG she calls Phil uncle Philly, that is so sweet.” Said Louise in an admiration voice. “Hey sweetie, you can call me Auntie Louise if you want.” Continued my friend, noticing that Lizzie was starring at her. 

 

 

“Can I really daddy? You told me not to call other people auntie and uncle unless you let me.” Asked me my baby girl.

 

 

“Yeah Lizzie, is fine, I’ll be introducing you to some new people and some of them will want you to call them aunt or uncle, so don’t worry okay?” I answer her. It was a choice me and Clary made a while ago, teach her not to call people like that because some people might not enjoy it very much. “This is auntie Louise, she will be taking care of you tomorrow for a couple of hours while Daddy works, okay?” 

 

 

“Are you going to leave me like mommy?” Asked her way quieter this time.

 

 

“Of course not baby llama, I’ve told you this so many times, I’m not gonna leave you, but daddy needs to work, you know that. Tomorrow I’ll be out just for a while, and you two are going to have a lot of fun and you won’t even notice!”  I hug her tight and kiss her face a couple of times. “But now we are going to have dinner, right guys? Who’s hungry?” I ask, looking back to my friends, that were smiling looking at us.

 

 

“I am starving!” Said Phil, picking up the pizzas and organizing the food on our table.  

 

 

“Oh God me too!” Said Louise getting up from the couch and going to the table. 

 

 

“You and I are going to wash our hands first little piggy.” I comment when Lizzie runs to the table but I hold her back. I grab her in the air making her laugh.

 

 

“I’m not a piggy, I’m a llama.” She comments trying to be a smart ass.

 

 

“Until you get your hands clean you are my baby pig.” I shake her more in the air. “We will be right back, you don’t need to wait on us.” I say to my friends putting Lizzie back on the floor. 

 

 

“Good because that was not in my plans.” Answered Louise grabbing a pizza slice and biting a bit of it, making me and Phil laugh. I take Lizzie downstairs to wash her hands, and make a side note in my brain to find something to put next to the sink so she can climb safely to do this by herself. Our house is definitely not child proof. Once we go back to the lounge, Phil had placed a plate with tons of chicken wings (Lizzie’s favorite) next to the orange chair. My chair. I do not question that because it actually doesn’t matter, butI look at Phil wondering why he choose my chair of choice to Lizzie.

 

 

“Now that you are back being a llama, you can sit on your second favorite color chair Lizzie, I saved it specially for you.” Said Phil answering my silent question. Oh right, orange is her second favorite color, I knew that. Right? Yeah of course I knew that, it just skipped my mind. We all take the dinner time to talk, so Louise can know Lizzie better. When they engage in a conversation about dresses and hair colors I know they will be alright alone in the next day.

 

 

We finish dinner and go straight to the office to make Louise’s bed. We had invited her to sleep her even before asking her to take care of Lizzie, because we knew that the travel back to her place was long and we didn’t want her to do it alone at night. It was only half past seven but Lizzie was almost falling asleep standing, so I take her down to the bathroom again so I can give her a bath, I brush her hair, brush her teeth, and we say goodnight to Phil and Louise so we can lay down and she can go to sleep.

 

 

I read her a couple more pages of Harry Potter before she cuts me to ask for Phil.

 

 

“Today is just the two of us baby girl. Uncle Phil has his own room, I’m sure he showed you that since he gave you his Pikachu.”

 

 

“But I want him too.” She says, really quiet, kinda understanding that she was not getting what she wanted that night, but still making a point. 

 

 

“I know Lizzie, but he is tired, and we have a big day tomorrow at work, we have to let Uncle Phil sleep on his own tonight, okay? You can see him in the morning when you wake up.” I make clear for her.

 

 

“Okay… But can he sleep with us tomorrow?” 

 

 

“If he wants to, yes. But you can ask him this tomorrow, now go to sleep, its for you to dream.” I tell her kissing the top of her head and turning the lamp on my bedside off. 

 

 

“Goodnight daddy llama.” She says falling asleep, as quickly as closing her eyes.

 

 

“Goodnight baby llama.” I answer, kissing her again and leaving the bed, so me and Phil can work a bit before tomorrow comes.

 

 

I go back to the lounge to find Louise and Phil talking. For a moment I had forgotten that she was in the house. 

 

 

“I just can’t believe that you are a dad.” Thats the first sentence she says as soon as I join them on the couch. 

 

 

“I know the feeling, still kinda unbelievable for me even after all these years. And she is so amazing, so perfect, I can’t get around my head that she is a part of me, to be honest.” I answer, falling on my seat, going to my browsing position and grabbing my laptop that was chilling on the side. 

 

 

“You are right to hide her from the fans. If they saw the way you look at her, and take care of her, and smile at her at the little things that she does, all your fans ovaries would explode. And if they didn’t have ovaries they would grow some just to explode them too.” She jokes, making me smile.

 

 

“Yeah, that is why I am keeping Lizzie in secret, I don’t want my fans to go infertile.” I joke back, laughing.

 

 

“That is pretty good excuse you can use if one day they find out that you’ve been lying to them all these time, to be honest.” Says Phil from over his laptop. 

 

 

“Yeah, of course, if that was going to work. They are going to come for your heads, but thats okay, it will be for a good reason. Darcy will be so excited to meet Lizzie, your girl is just perfect, and lovely, and they will be great friends, you will see.” Comment Louise, petting my hair. “I used to think of you as my baby sometimes, I like to imagine that I take care of the two of you even if you don’t need, and even when I’m not that older than you two, but now my baby has a baby, and I feel emotional.” 

 

 

“Please don’t cry. I’ve been a mess the past few days, if you cry I will cry too, and I really need to work.” I say really quick, but cuddling at her side. 

 

 

“We got a tour to handle. Have you though about what you wanna do?” Asks Phil, in a more serious note.

 

 

“We can’t call it a quit. I think we can post pond it, until the end of April or something like that.” I check my calendar to answer him. “We can start with the Playlist one, and work from there until VidCon. If Clary is not okay until then, at least Lizzie will be more used to be without her, and we can try to fit some visits on the calendar or take my mom and her with us to some of the places. As long as they stay away from us, I don’t think people will recognize my mom.”

 

 

“I think its pretty safe to say that they won’t. And we can make sure to put them in different flights, and make them check in the hotel earlier than us, so we don’t have many problems.” 

 

 

“Please take her to Playlist. Or VidCon. Tyler will pass out. Everyone is going to go crazy, trust me.” Said Louise, getting really excited.

 

 

“I don’t know if I want her to be in the middle of all that mess, Louise. There are too many vlogging cameras, and crazy fans, and some smaller and less famous youtubers that still don’t understand the price of fame. I don’t think we should take that risk.” I try to be polite about it. “Its not that I don’t want my friends to meet her, its just that I don’t want her to meet that side of my life. I don’t want it to be her life.” 

 

 

“I understand. Its just that you can’t keep her in a cocoon forever Dan. One day you will need to let her out in the world, and it will be way more dangerous if she is raised in a bubble, away from the real life. Anyways, enough from the ‘how to raise your kid’ talk, I just remembered that you still need to call Zoe and tell her the news. I wont pressure you to do this, I know its hard and scary, but she will be really excited about it, and I know you need some excitement in your life right now.” 

 

 

“Yeah, I know. And I love Zoe, if I’m going to start loosing the fear I have over sharing Lizzie, I’m glad I’m starting with the two of you.” I say, grabbing my phone. “Should I FaceTime her?”

 

 

“You should text her first, she will be creeped out if you just FaceTime her from nowhere.” Comment Phil, not taking his eyes from his laptop. I do that, and in a couple of minutes, she is calling me on FaceTime, and just like that, I am terrified again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Dan’s POV**

 

“OMG Dan you have to let me meet her! I’ll even try to go down to your place if I have to, but I really wanna meet her. Does she look like you? She must be such a gorgeous little thing. I can’t believe you are a father. I joked about us adopting Emilia and now I can totally see you as a dad, you are great with kids. Alfie is going to go crazy when I tell him, honestly. He is so in love with kids, I’m pretty sure he will volunteer to help whenever you need, and truly, he is amazing with the little ones, you can totally trust him.” Said an excited Zoe after I explained everything to her.

 

“You don’t have to come here, really. I know how hard it is for you to come to London with all the people and traffic and everything. I’m probably taking Lizzie to Brighton to meet Peej and Pewds in a few days, so you can meet her there…” I say, messing with my hair trying to think on how we would go to Brighton with Lizzie without anyone noticing. That would be a hard thing to do, but necessary, PJ would never forgive me if I told him on Facetime as I did with Zoe.

 

“That would be so perfect! I’ll bake us some cupcakes and we can have a nice night in catching up. I miss you all! You always come here and forget my existence. I know how all the ‘Phan vs Alfie’ thing that the phans keep talking about is a lie and a really stupid rumor, but sometimes you three really make it hard for me to protect you all. You should come over, you’ve never been to our place and you have never met Nala.”

 

“We are not really social people. We keep to our little group, but we miss you too, we will go meet Nala one day, and you can meet Lizzie.” I assure her, making clear that we would visit her and Alfie. And Nala of course, Phil and I had been really busy for the past year and never got the chance to meet the little pug, but we are in love with dogs and we really wanna do it. 

 

“Thank you for thrusting me Dan, honestly, I promise you that we will keep your secret with our owns. I’ll be sure to add Clary on my prayer’s list, she will be okay, you’ll see. I’ll go sleep now, I hope to hear from you soon!” Said Zoe, as we said our goodbyes and turned the FaceTime off. 

 

“That was better than I thought it would be.“ I commented once I closed my laptop placing it on my lap. 

 

“Told ya that it isn’t going to be too bad when everyone finds out.” Agreed Louise, hugging me again. I hug her back, and then lean to my other side to lay down in Phil’s lap, making sure to place my laptop on the floor so it doesn’t fall down from the couch. “Well, thats my cue. I’ll go to bed cause tomorrow I’ll have a busy day getting to know Lizzie better. Good night sweeties.”

 

“Good night Louise.” We answered both together as she left the room and went upstairs to her improvised room in the office. I stay laying in Phil’s lap for a few more minutes before starting grunting trying to get some attention.

 

“Yes?” Asked Phil, looking down from his laptop on the couch’s arm to me.

 

“Do you think I’m doing the right thing?” I ask worried, looking at his blue eyes. 

 

“About…?” 

 

“About Lizzie of course. About everything. Telling people about her, bringing her here, trying to fit both of our lives together in this crazy world, changing her entire world upside down, changing our little private world upside down. Do you think I’m doing the right thing?” I face his stomach, trying to hide my face on his body so I don’t need to look at his penetrating eyes anymore.

 

“You are her father, I’m sure that you are doing what you think is the right thing, Dan.” He answers, placing his laptop down, and messing with my hair, trying to make me feel comfortable. 

 

“That’s not what I asked.” I mumble against his shirt. 

 

“I love her Dan, you know that, and as much as I want to keep her all to myself and you, I know that she needs people in her life, now even more than ever. I feel like we are doing the right thing, and if we are not, we are going to deal with all that comes out of it together.” He says in a more serious note, still playing with my hair. All the 'We’ in his sentence made me more comfortable with the choices I was making on the past few days, assuring me that I wasn’t alone in this journey. I got closer to him, making myself even more comfortable on his lap and the couch. “You know we need to work, right? No time for sleep to the busy dad.” He tries to sound tough, making me laugh a bit and recovering his laptop, to go back to work. 

 

  “Can’t we just go to bed and deal with everything in the morning?” I mumble again, trying to get his laptop of his hands.

 

 "Are you going to wake up in the morning to work? Cause I’m not.“ I agree with my head, letting him know that I will wake up early if we leave everything now and go to bed. "You are not going to wake up at 7am. Waking up at 9am will be hard enough for you, don’t lie to me.”

 

  “I won’t be able to work tonight. And we don’t have much to do, its just the first meeting, we’ll still have five others before we get to a decision.” I make it clear, starting to get up from his lap, but I give up in the middle of the action, picking up one of the cushions and placing it so I could lay down in a more comfortable position.

 

  “You are right.” He said after a few seconds of me moving around trying to get a better position. “You should go to bed, I’ll stay here and make sure we have all the topics for the meeting are written down so we don’t forget any of them.” He offers, looking into my eyes to make his point, he is not going to bed before finish working. 

 

  “No. You are going to bed too. I don’t wanna go by myself.” 

 

   "You are going to go by yourself anyway. I have my own room here, if you don’t recall that.“ He smiles, turning his attention back to the notes open in his laptop.

 

  "I do recall that. That’s why I’m so eager to go with you. I need cuddling. And Lizzie moves too much.” I say, pushing him closer to me, making the point that he was the best pillow and person for cuddling available, and I wasn’t going to give up. “Tell me that’s not weird.” I comment after a few minutes of couch cuddles.

 

    “What’s not weird?” He asks, finally paying full attention to me, after writing down some more of our notes for the meeting. 

 

   "Me wanting to go to bed with you. I need comfort to deal with all of this happening, and you are kinda of my safe place. That’s not weird right? That’s just how friends are.“ I say, trying to convince myself more than him, if I’m being honest.

 

   "No. That’s not how friends usually are, but that’s how we are anyway, so no, it’s not weird. Let’s go brush our teeth and go to bed. Get out from my legs.” He said, making me happy for giving up the work for my comfort, but also making me leave the couch, with a whine. 

 

    We brushed our teeth together, trying to make each other laugh, almost choking on the process, passed on the kitchen to get a glass of cold water, and moved back to go to bed. Before going to Phil’s room I checked Lizzie to see if she was fine, and made a mental note to come back to my room before she wake up in a different house and make a scene. We got into Phil’s room and prepare the bed, with me taking the left side and him taking the right side as we always did in these situations. He placed his arm around me and pulled me closer to his body, resting his face on my neck giving me chills, making me really comfortable and safe. I fell asleep happy for being on my safe place, the little spoon in Phil’s bed, like we used to do back in 2009. 

 

  I was dreaming with VidCon. Not the screams from the excited fans on the panels, or the happy smiles from them on the meet and greet. I dreamed about backstage. About seeing all of my friends at once, about how hard it used to be talk to Lizzie on Facetime in the middle of a huge convention, trying to keep her in secret. I dreamed about everyone finding our about her in the worst way possible: my Facetime connecting with the huge panel screen, in front of thousands of fans and youtubers and Lizzie’s face smiling at them, having fun. It wasn’t exactly a dream, it was one of my worst nightmares, one that wasn’t going to happen like that, but it was closer and closer to happen anyway. 

 

I was scared, sweating and feeling exposed and heartbroken, when I woke up with a scream. It wasn’t a horror movie scream. Or a little girl scream that would mean she woke up in a strange house, a weird room and without someone she knows close to her. It was an excited and happy scream like the ones we hear in conventions coming from the fans, but this one came from inside the room, and from someone we know really well.

 

“LOUISE!” Screamed Phil, and then he covered his mouth, trying to be quieter. “What are you doing in my room? Why are you screaming? You will wake up Lizzie! Is anything wrong? Is Lizzie okay?” He asked really fast, making it hard for my lazy sleepy brain to precess it all. 

 

“Of course she is okay! Uncle Philly and Daddy are together! She will be more than okay when she finds out. That is so sweet, she really needs this strong and lovely relationship between you two to build a strong base for life, now even more than before. She will be so happy, I’ll go get her.” Said a really excited Louise , and I started picking up what she was saying and got up really fast from Phil’s embrace.

 

“Wait. What? Stop right there Louise. There is nothing going on between Phil and I. I would never do that. Are you crazy? What’s wrong with you? Why would you say something like that?” I said in a really loud and angry voice, not accepting what she was suggesting. “And why are you in Phil’s room? How do you go inside someone’s room without knocking? Do you even know what privacy means?” I ask getting up from the bed, in only my PJ pants and hugging my self to cover my body, it was really cold. 

 

“Dan calm down. You are going to wake Lizzie up, its only 8:30am. I’m sure Louise has a good explanation for why she is in my room without knocking. You don’t need to act like she is attacking you, it’s all fine. Calm down. Come back to bed, it’s cold, come on. Let’s talk about it.” Said Phil, really calm, opening again a space in bed under the covers for me, that I took reluctantly. I was mad because of the situation. “Louise there is nothing going on between Dan and I.” Phil said pretty clear.

 

“But you were half naked spooning in the bed. What the heck is happening then?” She sounded confused. 

 

“I needed to feel comfortable. I feel comfortable with Phil, so I slept here. That’s all. There is nothing more here.” 

 

“What? That’s not nothing Dan. That is something. You feel good in Phil’s embrace, that means something. Since when this is happening? Why are you two lying to me? Am I not good enough to know this secret too? Do you think I’m going to see you two differently after you tell me you are together? Or you just wanna hide it from me like you’ve hidden Lizzie for 4 years? I don’t understand.” Argued an almost crying Louise.

 

“Louise, don’t cry, don’t feel bad. Honestly, there is nothing happening. We are friends. I know this is more than friends usually do, but it is how it is for us. We’ve been friends for a really long time, we know each other really well. We have been together supporting each other through everything in our lives, and more importantly, all decisions related to Lizzie’s life. For us it is normal to do look for each other’s arms when we need support. There is nothing sexual, nothing amorous related to it. Its just for comfort. We don’t hope you understand just please know that and respect. It is how we work.” Explained Phil, getting up and hugging her. A few seconds latter the door opened once again, this time to reveal a happy little llama running to the bed. 

 

“DADDY! You have a piano too! Can we play it together later? I’ve been learning a few new notes on it and I wanna practice. Can we daddy? Please?” Said an excited Lizzie jumping on Phil’s bed and on my arms. Cutting of the weird talk going on in the room.

 

“Good morning to you too little llama.” I say, turning us on the bed so she was laying down and I was tickling her. “I won’t stop until you say the magical sentence."I joke, hoping she will say good morning back to me. But she surprised me once again. 

 

"Petrificus Totalus!” 

 

“Omg she is really your daughter.” Laughed Phil, that was watching the interaction happening in his bed.  

 

I was still shocked with her answer but played along, pretending my whole body when frozen and fell down on the bed not moving. 

 

“Come on Daddy stop. I’m hungry.” She said after a few seconds of me quiet. When she was least expecting me I jumped on her again. “STOP!!!! I want pancakes. Good morning, GOOD MORNING STOP DADDY!” She screamed laughing with the tickles. I stopped once she said the magical sentence and got off the bed taking her with me. Louise and Phil were watching us, with a smile on their faces. 

 

“Well thats our clue to go make some pancakes.” Said Phil coming closer to me to get my daughter out of my arms. I refused giving her to him. “Oh okay, you greedy, you want her all to yourself, fine, but I won’t make any pancakes for you. 

 

"As if you are the only one who is going to be cooking. You will probably put fire in the house if I let you cook by yourself. Now let’s go, I’m hungry too. Louise? Ladies first.” I said, offering  the way out of the to Louise who was just watching us, really quiet. I could almost hear the engines going on full potency in her brain, I would have to deal with that sooner or later and I knew that. But if I can choose, later it is. 

 

We get to the kitchen and I put Lizzie on the floor, and she goes straight to Louise to talk about cartoons. Lucky for us, Lizzie and Darcy watch the same cartoons, so they had tons of things to talk about.

 

Me and Phil started working on the pancakes together, like we always do. Since we moved in together we decided that none of us had the ability of cooking alone, so every important meal in the house was prepared by the two of us. We had a system already. I would measure the flour and pour it in a bowl as he was measuring the sugar (a little too much every time) and the milk. I would put all the other ingredients and he would mix, as I turned the stove on and prepare the pan. He would put the amount necessary of the mixture on, I would check until it was ready to flip, and we would take turns flipping the pancakes. It was a perfect system. 

 

We worked perfectly fine, singing the theme songs to some of our favorite animes and making jokes with each other, as any other morning. But this time we weren’t alone. I could almost feel Louise eyes staring at us, watching every single movement we were doing as she was talking and half paying attention to my daughter. We would have to discuss this whole thing later, and it didn’t feel like it was going to be a fun conversation. 

 

Phil and I finished preparing the breakfast and we all moved to the lounge to enjoy the pile of food that we’ve made in a few minutes. The time flew by and sooner than we could imagine it was time for me and Phil to leave for our meeting. 

 

“Promise me you will be good to Auntie Louise. We will be back as soon as possible and we will practice the piano for a while, but only if you are a good girl and respect Louise. You know how it works, right? Be a good girl and I will treat you like a grown up. Be a bad girl and I will have to treat you as a little kid that doesn’t know how to respect people. You know how both works. Right?” I ask, checking if she still knows how our process of “leaving Lizzie with a baby sitter” works. We always gave her the options for both sides, and made clear she knew the consequences for both. She can always choose, and she will always understand the price for each choice. She agreed with me smiling, it always melted my heart. “Okay, daddy has to go. I love you Lizzie, I’ll be back soon. Bye Louise, thank you again!” I say running down the stairs with Phil following me. 

 

We were already late.

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

**Phil’s POV (What? Really?? I am as surprised as you guys ;P )**

 

I could see the fight behind Dan’s eyes. I could see how hard it was for him to be in a meeting room, trying to make it clear to a whole board of people that “for personal reasons” and TATINOF we couldn’t do the radio show for a few months, while his mind was back home thinking about Lizzie and Clary. 

 

 

“Thats the deal guys. I am sorry, but we can’t. We won’t be able to do the show for over eight months, we are going to America, then Australia, and then wke need a break before Europe, Asia and South America. I can’t deal with thinking about this right now. We are really grateful for all of this, you know that, but we just need a break so we can focus on other things.” Said Dan, almost loosing control. I could tell that he was on the edge of a breaking down because his hair was all messed up and he couldn’t keep his hands quiet. 

 

 

The BBC people were really nice, but in the end we had a show that brought them a lot of money and views and this is something really hard to give up. They did understand that it was our choice, and it wasn’t a easy one for us either, so they in the end accepted it. Dan’s final words were enough for them to agree with letting us go. We left the building feeling a little bit bittersweet. BBC was the reason why we moved to London and did so many amazing things in our lives, so leaving it for such a long time was weird. At the same time it felt amazing. I could smell the freedom and new possibilities in the air. 

 

 

“Do you want to pass on Starbucks? I think I need a Caramel Macchiato. Or something that reminds me of when life used to be easy. I can almost feel the stress coming out of my pores.” Said Dan, cutting my line of thoughts. He really seemed stressed and tired.

 

 

“We can if you want, but I have cherry lub in the house, I think you could make a better use of some instead of drinking coffee .” I comment, trying to make him laugh a bit, to get a more cheerful air around us. He didn’t seem to enjoy the reference much. Maybe I stepped too far since I could almost feel the ‘Phiiilll stop…’ that he was sending trough his eyes. “Okay, I get it, I’ll stop. Starbucks sounds great, I’ll call Louise and see if she wants something.” 

 

 

“Thank you.” 

 

 

“But really, I can take care of Lizzie anytime, if you need to go out or just have some time alone. I know that life is not treating you with kindness these past few weeks, and you have to remind yourself that you are a 24 years old guy that deserves a night free of worries. I’m sure we would have a lot of fun, Lizzie and I, eating some chocolate and watching some cartoons on the TV.” 

 

 

“Phil stop. Please just stop. I don’t feel like discussing my ‘alone time’ with you, thank you very much.” Said a less stressed Dan, with kinda of a smile in his face.

 

 

“Okay, I’m just saying, if you need me to take care of your kid, so you can forget that you have one for one day, I’m here.”

 

 

“I know. And I really appreciate what you’ve done for me all of these years Phil, honestly, and you know that. But right now I just feel like passing on Starbucks, going home, calling my mom to get some news on Clary, hugging my child, and hibernating for a couple of days, so I can feel like a human being again. The BBC meeting board people were really nice with us, but that was so emotionally tiring. Giving up everything that we built in this company, the life we created here in London. I don’t know, it feels like there is nothing keeping me here anymore. It feels weird, like I don’t belong here, or anywhere for what matters. Its like a don’t have a home anymore.” Answered Dan, resting his head on my shoulder. The tube was pretty empty, there were a few people looking at us, but that didn’t matter for us. Not anymore.  

 

 

“You know, you always have me, and no matter how cheesy or romantic this may sound I really think we belong together, even after we have our own families we will be always next to each other in life, it doesn’t matter if it is in London or anywhere around the globe. You will always have a home with me, with that you don’t need to worry.” I comment trying to make him feel better, but saying from the bottom of my heart. We stayed like that for a while, and the aura around us was heavy, making me tired, so once we left the tube in one of the train stations I remembered something from a while ago and it would fit perfectly for my plans today to make the mood lighter and happier. “Hey, lets go to the London Eye.”

 

 

“What? Phil are you okay? I just told you that I wanna go home and hide myself in a cocoon of sheets for ten days, and you want to take me to the London Eye?” 

 

 

“Well, I wanna go to the London Eye. And I really feel like you should join me. You are going to have a lot of time to hide yourself in your room later, but right now I really think that we should go to the London Eye.”

 

 

“Phil, we’ve been to the London Eye before. There is nothing much there. Just a giant wheel and tons of tourists waiting in a line, submitting themselves to a freezing wind, just to get a picture from the top of the wheel, like everyone else in the freaking world that have been here has done before. I don’t think I can deal with that right now.” 

 

 

“I know we’ve been there, but I wanna go again. Common Dan, please?”

 

 

“Why do you wanna go there so bad? Four years living in London and you never mentioned the place, and now from nowhere you really wanna go?” He looked at me with a confused expression. I decided to tell the truth.

 

 

“A few months ago, when we came back from a visit to your place, Clary asked me to go to the London Eye for her and take a picture. She never had the chance to go before, and she didn’t want to come to London with Lizzie, but she was curious about the view, and she said that she didn’t want to see it trough a stranger’s perspective. So I figured out we could do that today, I don’t know, so next time we go visit her we can tell everything about it. It would make me feel better knowing that at least I’m doing something for her. I feel sad not being able to do anything for her.” Dan was quiet for a few moments, before start walking to the train that would take us to the London Eye. “Thank you.” I said, once we were inside of the train. 

 

 

“That’s ok. I feel like I should be doing something too. I don’t like to be here away from her and everything, but there is nothing we can do there, so let’s do what we can. And I just sent Louise a text, Lizzie is fine, she is taking a nap after playing for 3h straight and talking to Zoe, we have a couple hours before Luise gets tired of my kid and leave.”

 

 

“I don’t think that there is a single person in the world that would get tired of Lizzie. At least not anyone that we know.” I snap back, trying to make him smile. He does for a few seconds and then it fades away. “What? What’s wrong?” 

 

 

“Well, I was just thinking that we are going to find out that sooner than later, aren’t we? Playlist live is coming, the tour, VidCon. We can’t leave Lizzie here for the whole ten weeks, we can’t keep her without Clary and us. I spent the whole night thinking about this.” 

 

 

“Hey, you don’t know if Clary will be okay by then. Have a little bit of faith on her.” 

 

 

“I do. But let’s be realistic Phil, she is not waking up soon. The doctors don’t think she is, the internet says that she isn’t. And deep down I know that she won’t be opening her eyes right now. And even if she does, she won’t be able to leave to hospital for a few weeks, and then she won’t be able to take care of Lizzie for a few months, Lizzie is my daughter too, and it’s my responsibility taking care of her.” 

 

 

“So you want to take Lizzie on the tour with us? Do you think that is smart? The phans will probably find out about her in like 3 days.”

 

 

“Well, right now that’s the best idea that I’ve had. I’m accepting sugestions.” Dan said, at the same moment our train arrived in the station and we got too crowded and pushed around to continue the important conversation. 

 

 

We went trough the whole trip just checking our phones and making random comments about stuff we saw online, nothing really important, for a moment everything felt normal, right on its place, and then we arrived at the London Eye. Nothing about me and Dan being at the London Eye was normal. First, we didn’t like to go to very touristic places in London because it was too crowded. Second, we couldn’t walk much because we were stopped by fans a few times and they all wanted to talk and take pictures, and we were not feeling like doing much of it. And finally the waiting line was boring and we really wanted a booth to ourselves so we could talk about Clary and take our pictures. Almost an hour later we were able to do it.

 

 

“I apreciate our fans a lot, but sometimes it just gets too much.” Dan pointed out, once we started moving. I agreed with my head, but my attention was almost entirelly focused at the view. I really wanted to make the best out of this so I could report it perfectly to Clary once we go visit her again, because of that I made sure to analyze all the little things, including all the shades of the colours displayed around the whole view. I looked behind me, to check what Dan was doing, and he was recording my reaction to everything and our little journey at the giant wheel. He noticed my weird look. “What? Its going to be easier to make her feel like she was here if she has a video. You’ve been in the youtube for ten years Phil, you should have thought about that.”

 

 

“Oh sorry if I was appreciating the perfect view. You are not mad with me for appreciating it, right Clary?” I asked, facing straight into the lens. “See? She is not mad. She is glad that at least one of us is actually appreciating the day.” 

 

 

“Of course not! She is mad because you are talking over her video, and she just wants to appreciate the view. Aren’t you, love?” Asked Dan, turning the camera to his face and smiling, dimples making an appearance and all. “See, she agrees with me, as we all knew she would do.” He turned the camera back at me.

 

 

“You called her love. Thats not fair! You know that she can’t say no to you when you call her love, it’s impossible. Tell him that is impossible to say no to him when he calls you love, he won’t listen to me.” I hold the camera, showing Dan’s face again, and he is still smiling. 

 

 

“Are you jealous Phil? Do you want me to call you love too?” He joked, winking at me.

 

 

“No, I don’t want you to pretend to love me, thank you.” I say, and turn the camera back at me and the view. “I’m sorry darling, we are bothering you watch the view. I’ll go back to show you London.” And I turn the camera to the outside view once again. We are quiet for a few seconds before Dan cuts out the silence. 

 

 

“Why are you calling the mother of my daughter darling?” Asked him pretending to be hurt, I laugh. 

 

 

“Well, if you can call her love its only fair that I call her darling. Isn’t it?” I turn the camera to film the both of us, discussing the matter. 

 

 

“I guess so. I don’t think she wants either of us to call her that though. You know that she would be punching our arms right now for joking around and making fun with her.” 

 

 

“Would you? You wouldn’t do that to us. You know how many girls out there would be dying to be called love and darling by us, you would appreciate it, right Clary? But you know that you are the only one receiving the ‘amazing’ treatment.” I wink at the camera.

 

 

“Stop! Just stop! This pun is unbearable. And stop hitting on her!” He tried to take the camera out of my hands, but I was able to keep it facing the two of us. 

 

 

“Oh common Dan! Just because one of us is on fire you don’t have to be jealous.” I joke again smiling at him, he just placed his hands over his eyes shaking his head. “Okay, I’ll stop and enjoy the ride.”

 

 

“Finally! We won Clary, our daughter will be proud.” Dan said, holding his arms up in the air, pretending to celebrate. Suddenly his face was back to a sad expression. He got the camera from my hand and started talking to it. “She misses you a lot. Lizzie, I mean. She called your name while sleeping a few times on the past days. We brought her to London with us, she seems excited to be finally in mine and Phil’s place, but we know that she is not as distracted as we want her to be. You know how smart she is, she knows that you are at the hospital, and she knows that there is nothing that we can do, but she misses you, as we all do. I wanted to be able to stay at Reading with you, I wanted to be there, but you know I can’t. I am trying to continue life, be as rational as I am when I talk about other subjects and give advices, but its not that easy. You and Phil have been my partners in life for such a long time, I don’t know how I would survive if I lost one of you. I don’t know how I could go on if I lost you.” Dan said, starting to cry, I didn’t know what to do, so I hugged him, from his side. “Oh God, I sound like a crazy person don’t I? Talking to a camera because I am not brave enough to visit one of the most important person in my life at the hospital, afraid of being there when they are gone.” He said, dropping the camera and placing his head on my shoulder, to cry a bit more. 

 

 

“You sound human to me. Well, not actually, you sound like a pig when you are crying, snorting and trying to talk at the same time, but you are only human Dan. You have been talking to a camera for such a long time, you feel comfortable doing it. We don’t judge you for not being comfortable in a hospital room. This is how you express yourself, and I’m sure Clary will be glad you are recording how you are actually feeling to show her later, because I know you won’t tell her in person, and she will like to know, you know that she will want to know everything we went trough. She is a little sadist that one.” I try to make him feel better, and it kinda works. We stay hugged to each other for a few more seconds before feeling the wheel stopping, we were back on the floor level. Dan cleaned his face, looked at me and smiled.

 

 

“Thank you for listening to me, and making me feel like I am a normal human being with a soul and a heart. Lets go grab those macchiatos, right?” And we are back to brave-hiding-real-emotions Dan.  “I’ll call Louise, you call the cab, I’m tired of taking the tube, too many people with colds and plague.” I agree getting my phone out and asking for a cab. The ride to the closest Starbucks to our place was pretty quick, and actually fun. Dan and I spent the whole trip discussing our favorite concerts ever, Muse not included cause that was already obvious. 

 

 

The Starbucks wasn’t very crowded, just a couple of guys in a table on the corner, and a group of girls in line to order their drinks. Phil and I approached the line and one of the girls turned back, looking straight at us and loosing her breath for a second. Oh God, here we go. Dan and I prepared ourselves for the screams and cry and craziness, but none of them came. 

 

 

“Hey guys! I can’t believe we’ve met you here. We came all the way from Brazil, this is really unbelievable. We never though we would meet you here.” Said one of them, smiling at us.

 

 

“Oh hi. You came all the way from Brazil? That is kinda crazy. What are you doing in town?” Asked Dan, and I really hoped the answer wasn’t ‘we were searching for you guys.’

 

 

“We were searching for you guys.” Another girl said, making us back up a bit, and then they were all laughing. “OMG your faces were amazing, I wish I had recorded that. No, we weren’t stalking you two. We are doing a world tour. We don’t actually have a show, so its not a tour, its more like a world trip, but we call it a tour because its more fun and we sound fancier. Anyway, we are going around visiting some nice places and decided to make a stop here. I’m Julea by the way, these are my friends Jojo, Camila, Cresh and Clary, and we are the ‘Dandelions’, well, part of it.” She said, pointing to each one of them. 

 

 

They all seemed like great people, and they were not screaming around and going crazy, so we took a few minutes to talk to them. Actually meeting people that appreciates our work and know how to act around us recognizing that we are only humans is pretty cool, so that made us feel better for the day, getting over all the heavy stuff we went trough the week. Even tough one of them was named Clary and did remind us of our problems, it was nice to meet new people from a different country that uses our videos to get over problems, learn new things, and make friends. Just knowing that showed us how much we meant for someone out there, and it was great. We left the coffee shop feeling renewed, ready for whatever life had planed for us for the rest of the day. Or at least that is what we thought.

 

 

At the moment we opened the flat door we heard Lizzie crying. It wasn’t like a ‘i want something you don’t want to give me so I’ll make a scene until you do’ cry. It was a heart felt sobbing cry, that broke my heart just from hearing it from downstairs.

 

 

“LIZZIE!” Dan screamed, running stairs up, leaving the Starbucks bags behind, so I could carry them. I tried my best to get everything, lock the door, and run stairs up until my friend and his baby girl without destroying everything, what took me like 4 minutes to be honest. On the moment I joined them in the room, I knew something wasn’t right. Dan was sat on the floor, hugging Lizzie, and both were crying, hard, with a Louise standing next to them also in tears. What the heck happened?


	7. Chapter 7

**Dan P.O.V**

 

 

 

Nothing seems right: the colors, the noises, the air, the floor. If gravity is working, I am just floating around on nothing. Lost in a sea of memories, of feelings and sadness. I can’t think, I can’t move, I can’t cry. I know that my arms are holding my daughter as strong as possible against my chest. I know that my legs are spread around the floor, and that Louise is somewhere around the room, standing. I know that Phil has his arms around me  keeping me safe against his body, holding us, trying to put all of our broken pieces together, but I’m completely numb. I can’t feel a thing. I can’t see a thing. I can’t hear a thing. Seconds pass like they are hours, my head hurts trying to find logic, trying to find a reason for my life, for any of our lives. 

 

It takes me what feels like hours but are really seconds to be able to hear the conversation around me. To start putting  all the pieces of information together and trying to create an escape from reality. Clary. Hospital call. Mom unreachable. Texts. Brain death. No cellphone. Reading. Taxi. Canceling plans. Nothing seems to fit. Life is meaningless. Lizzie. I have to get up. I need to be strong. Lizzie needs me. She is scared, she is alone, I need to hold her. Where is she? I can’t feel her wrapped in my arms anymore. 

 

 

 

“Lizzie. Where is Lizzie?” I gain enough strength to ask Phil, who is still holding me while sitting on the floor. 

 

 

 

“Louise took her for a shower. She’s okay Dan, she’s strong. She will need you, but I guess right now she is as confused as we are. Louise said that she never told Lizzie what the phone call was about, but both of us know that Lizzie didn’t need Louise to tell her. She is smart and sensitive, I’m sure she knew something was wrong before the phone rang. By the way, Louise said that they tried to call our cellphones but it didn’t work. I guess we were still on the tube.” He said, holding me stronger. “What are we going to do?” He asked, and I could feel his tears starting to wet my shirt on my shoulder, where his face was. 

 

 

 

“I don’t know.” I cried too, turning my body to hug Phil while still sat on the floor, my legs over his legs as we tried to hold each other as close as possible, trying to find our safe place. “What do I do, Phil?” I sob harder.

 

 

 

“We have to go back, thats the first thing we will do. Once we are there we can meet Riley and discuss… arrangements I guess. There’s nothing much we can do Dan. In the end, it’s Riley’s decision. She is the one calling the shots. If she wants to turn everything down, there is nothing we can do to change that.”

 

 

 

“I can’t let her give up on Clary.” I say, getting out from our embrace to look at Phil’s face. “I can’t let her take away Lizzie’s mom.” 

 

 

 

“Dan, you have to start trying to accept the fact that Clary might not be in there anymore. I know that they are still running some tests and there is like a 2% chance that her brain is still working. But if it isn’t, you will have to accept that she isn’t there. I’m here for you and Lizzie, but Lizzie will need you too. I’ll need you.” Phil said, cleaning his tears and keeping eye contact with me. We needed to be strong for each other.

 

 

 

We got up from the floor together, and went to our rooms to pack our bags again. I took some dirty clothes out of it, and replaced it with some clean ones. I grabbed a tux from my closet, trying not to think too much about the meaning of taking it with me. I packed a small bag for Lizzie. She had everything she could need at my mother’s house, and remembered to grab Miss Llama. I met Louise and Lizzie back in the lounge. My daughter jumped in my arms as soon as she saw me, hiding her face in my neck. I looked at Louise, whose makeup was destroyed and struggled to smile.

 

 

 

“Thank you for taking care of her.” I said with all my heart, hugging Lizzie stronger. 

 

 

 

  
“You don’t have to thank me.” She smiled weakly. “I’m really sorry Dan. I don’t know Clary, but I’m sure she is an amazing woman and she doesn’t deserve this. You don’t deserve this. Neither does Lizzie. I’m sorry you guys have to go through this.” She said, coming to hug us. “I’ll leave, I know you guys have to go.” She said, leaving our embrace and grabbing her bag.

 

 

 

“Louise. Wait.” I said, making a decision in the heat of the moment. “Can you please tell people about this? Like PJ, Chris, Felix, Tyler, you know, people. I think it will be easier to deal with life when I come back if they are already informed on what has been happening to us.” 

 

 

 

“Yes of course I can do that. But are you sure you want me to?”

 

 

 

 

“Yes, I’m sure. Tell them that this can’t go public, please. And if they ask, tell them that they will be meeting Lizzie as soon as she feels like meeting new people.” I say, making a point. Lizzie was my daughter, I would never put her through anything that she didn’t feel like doing. Louise agreed, kissing Lizzie’s cheek and hugging me one more time. When she left the lounge she met Phil, who took her to the door. 

 

 

 

“Hey baby llama. How are you doing?” I asked my baby girl, who was still hiding her face in my neck.

 

 

 

“I miss mommy.” She answered, breaking my heart one more time today.

 

 

 

“I know you do sweetie. I do too. I’m taking you to see her tomorrow, okay?” I say, taking a deep breath before talking again. “I need you to be strong baby girl. Mommy is not doing well right now. She is really hurt, and she might not wake up again. She misses her mommy and daddy and she might just go to the skies to live with them once again. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you, or that she is abandoning you, or that she doesn’t want to be with us, it just means that her time is up, she has to go live with her mommy and daddy. I just need you to understand that she might do it sometime soon. We are all going to do die and go live in the skies one day. We are all going to meet up there one day, but mommy might go sooner.” I have to take another deep breath before continuing. “I know you are really small, but you are a smart girl, and I am really proud of you baby llama, you have been dealing so well with all of this… Mommy is proud of you too, I know she is.” I finished, before I started to cry again.

 

 

 

“The car is here.” Phil said, from the door. I shook my head knowing that it was time to go and started to walk towards the door. My body working completely on automatic. I had Lizzie in her car seat and Phil by my side, holding me against his side, my head on his shoulders.

 

 

 

London was passing outside the window, but my brain was flying through years of memories. The first time I saw Clary on the hallways of Manchester Uni, carrying too many books for such a small person. Her bright smile on the day that I got my first ‘A’ after many late nights spent with her helping me study. The day that she told me that she was pregnant and I wanted to hunt down the guy who impregnated her, until realizing that I was the father. Our first doctor appointment, Lizzie’s heartbeat on the monitor, happy tears streaming down our faces. Her strong hold on my hands when we told my parents, the screams, the sad tears streaming down on our cheeks. The day we told Phil, the bright huge smile on his face, all the jokes, all the hugs and movie nights between the three of us. Lizzie being born, Clary crushing my hand, our little pink package growing so quickly, so smart. People say that when you die your whole life passes before your eyes. I wasn’t the one dying, but I could feel a part of me leaving with the passing of the flashbacks of our life. I was so focused on trying to hold on to those memories that I didn’t realize we made it home until I felt my moms tears infiltrating my shirt.

 

 

 

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry Dan. I’m… I don’t even know what else to say. She was okay. She was there, just like all the other days, laying there like she was sleeping. I left to go grocery shopping so I could go back to stay with her through the night, my phone died, and I got home and your dad… He was with her. When everything crashed down, he was the one in the hospital. He said that everything was okay, and then in a heartbeat the room was full of doctors and he couldn’t figure out what was happening. The doctors don’t know either, he spent hours there, trying to figure out what was happening before calling you, but no one knows what’s  wrong. They are saying that she just gave up, but I know they’re wrong. She wouldn’t give up, she loves Lizzie, she loves Riley, she loves you, us, she wouldn’t leave us like this, not by choice.” She tried to say, jumping a few letters, taking a few breaths in between sentences. The hidden meaning behind her words made my heart skip a beat.

 

 

 

“She’s dead.” I said, dropping my bag, the reality sinking in. 

 

 

 

“All the machines are still working, they are keeping her alive, and they will continue until Riley tells the doctors to cut them all off. But the results came back a few minutes ago, her brain isn’t showing activity. They don’t know what happened, she just stopped. I was waiting for you to get here, Dr. Johnson wants to talk to you, we need to go back to the hospital. Your dad is there with Riley.” She continued, releasing her arms from our hug, and moving towards Phil and Lizzie. I couldn’t find the controls to my body, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t talk, or cry, or sit, or do anything for that matter. All I could think about was Lizzie growing up without her mom. Living a life without Clary. 

 

 

 

“Dan. Hey, Dan, you have to go. I’ll stay here with Lizzie, she’s tired and will probably fall asleep in a few minutes. You have to go to the hospital.” Said Phil, shaking my arm, trying to put me back into my body. “I know you’re scared, I know you’re hurt and tired of being strong, but you need to. They need you there, you gotta go. I’ll take care of Elizabeth. You go be the amazing guy I know you are. Go support Riley and be there for Clarisse. I’ll be here for you when you come back, okay? I’ll even order Chinese.” He said hugging me. I really don’t know what I would do with my life without Phil. 

 

 

 

“I can’t leave Lizzie. It’s her mom, she needs to say goodbye.” 

  
  


 

 

“She can say goodbye tomorrow. Riley isn’t calling the shots today, they have a minimum 24 hour policy in the hospital. We don’t know if she is going to do it at all. She’s in a really bad shape right now and could really use some support. You should go.” “I’ll go put Lizzie in her bed.” I said. 

 

 

 

“You can give her to me, I’ll do it.” Said Phil, leaving my embrace to get my daughter. “You go, be strong, I know you can.” He said to me, once again, leaving the room to go upstairs and put Lizzie to bed. I worked hard to find the controls to my legs and arms again, making an effort to pick my bag up and follow my mom to her car, so we could drive to the hospital. 

 

 

 

I hate hospitals. I hate the smell of it, I hate the fact that people are dying there, and that dozens of families are spread around the place with their hands tied, with nothing they can do. I hate the fact that today we are one of those families. 

 

 

 

I walked down a few corridors until I reached the elevator, and a few more blocks until Clary’s room. Riley is sat in a waiting space, next to the door. I walked up to her quickly. She got up and hugged me as strong as she is capable of. Riley was never a big fan of mine, I got her sister pregnant in Uni, its not like she was very excited about it in the beginning, but today that didn’t matter. We held on to each other for a few seconds before we left the embrace. I can see in her face how tired she is, how stressed, how sad and lonely she’s feeling, so I hug her again. Riley is only 23, and she’s passing through all of this basically alone, after losing her parents and everyone else in the family. Clary and Lizzie are the last people in her life, I can’t imagine how hard this must be for her. 

 

 

 

We sat down and continued in silence for a few seconds, until she cut it saying: “The doctor is inside the room. They are performing a few more tests. They’ve been in and out with machines and taking her for tests and everything for hours. They won’t give me an ultimatum until they finish everything. I don’t know if I should be planning a funeral or preparing a 'welcome back’ party for her. They won’t tell me if I should have minimal hope, or if I should just give up. My brain keeps jumping between awful memories and really great ones. I wanna go back to when we were two little kids, running around the garden, trying to catch each other. To when I followed each and every one of her footsteps, trying to be like her. So smart, so pretty, so sweet to everyone. She was the good one, I am the black sheep. Why does the world need to take the good things from us?” She ranted about, crying into her hands. I didn’t know what to do, so I hugged her from the side and let her cry. I am here to be the pillar, to be the strong one. I can cry later. I rubbed her back for a few minutes until Dr. Johnson left the room. I jumped on my feet and rushed over to him.

 

 

 

“Dr. Johnson, what is happening?” I asked in a mess of sadness, desperation and anger.

 

 

 

“Mr. Howell, I’m really sorry, but I can’t tell you much. She had a break down, we can say that much. She was doing fine, but the bleeding in her brain got too much, and we couldn’t operate, so that might have caused a block to all the brain functions. We are testing her for everything that we can, to see if its all out or not, but the blood is not helping. We are considering the surgery, but it might be too dangerous if any of the functions are still working. We are trying to find the best option, but we are running out of possibilities. We might already be working with a lost cause, but we can’t prove that with all the blood messing up the machines. I promise you I would keep running options through my brain until I find the best solution, but we might not have time.” 

 

 

 

“What exactly are you saying, Dr. Johnson?” I ask, trying to process all the information.

 

 

 

“I’m saying that the only way we can prove if she has brain functions or not, is doing the surgery to stop the bleeding. But the surgery in this state has a 90% chance of causing brain death if she is still there and working. Its Ms. Riley choice.” He said, looking at Riley. “We can’t make any promises about it. All of the tests we did say that her brain is completely dead. For all that matters, she is gone. But we don’t feel like this is right, there is too much in the game for us to give up and just turn everything down. We don’t want to give you false hope so I’m telling you the truth here, we can try, but the chance of her not being a lost cause is already minimal. I’m really sorry.”

 

 

 

“But there is a chance. A small chance, of her being okay in the end? Is that what you’re saying?” Asked Riley, getting up from her chair.

 

 

 

“Its really minimal, but yes. Please Ms. Platt, I don’t want you to feel excited about it, because reality in the end might crush you harder. This surgery is already very risky in normal conditions, we might not be able to get her out of it.” He said, holding Riley’s hand. “You have to choose. If you do choose for the surgery we have to rush her now.” Riley looked at me before turning to the doctor.

 

 

 

“Can we have a minute with her before, please?” She said, holding my hand. Riley knew that I needed to see Riley before everything was done. The doctor agreed, going to pick up some papers that Riley has to sign in case she agrees with the surgery, and we moved to Clary’s room.

 

 

 

Clary looked smaller than before. She looked better than yesterday, but I knew that wasn’t the case, she also looked tired, but like she was sleeping. And she looked weak, really weak. I held her cold hand, feeling the weak blood flow in her pulse caused by one of the machines. Riley was holding her other hand, and for a few minutes we watched her chest slowly and weakly rise with the air that another machine was pushing in and out of her. 

 

 

 

“She’s not going to make it, is she?” Asked Riley, with tears in her eyes. Her words cut deeply inside of me, because of the amount of truth behind it. I could feel the same. Clarisse wasn’t alive anymore, the doctors had hope, but my hope vanished already. Even if she was there, she was to weak to survive a surgery, we  already lost her. I agreed with Riley, a single tear falling from my eye. “She’s not there anymore, I can feel it. This is just a shell of who my sister used to be. There is no one in there for us to try and save anymore. I know they tried, I know they want to continue trying, to prove themselves that they were wrong, that she is there, that they can save a life, but they can’t. There is no life for them to save anymore. I don’t want her body to continue here, suffering. I want her to rest. Don’t let them keep trying their machines and methods on my sister Dan, I can’t deal with that.” She cried, leaving Clary’s hand and moving to the other side of the bed, where I was standing, to hug me.

 

 

 

I was completely lost in tears, but I agreed with her. We continued in that position for a few minutes. My left hand still holding Clary’s right hand, and my right arm around Riley’s waist, until the doctor came back in the room. “I don’t want the surgery. I want you and your team to stabilize her so her daughter can come say goodbye, and I want to turn everything down. That is my choice.” Said Riley, making everything official. Just like that, part of my heart was broken into pieces. It was official, Clary was dead. Oh Lizzie… How was I going to tell her that?

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my favorite chapter so far, but also the most emotionally wrecking one. Prepare yourself.

**Dan P.O.V**

 

 

 

I meet my father outside of Clary’s room. We weren’t in the best of terms since I quit law school, mainly because I had a kid to raise and I should focus on having a real job to give my daughter everything that she needed, but since Clary’s accident we have been talking more and being more social and cordial with each other, mainly because he basically adopted Clary as a daughter when she moved to Reading. Today I didn’t need social and cordial, I needed my father, and I know that he saw that in my eyes. I felt his arms around me, to embrace me for the first time in years. We were never that family that hugged everyday and talked about everything. I was never the favorite son, or the exemple to be followed, even after my parents finally realized that my job is valid, and I have a great life, I’m not nor will ever be the exemple to be followed in the family. Right now that didn’t matter. I’m still his son, and he still loves me. It felt good to finally feel again his love for me. I cried. With all my heart, my pain, my lost. I cried. I cried harder than ever before in my life. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t stand in my feet. My dad pulled us aside, to a free room, and he hugged me like never before, letting me sob in his shoulders.

 

 

“Its okay son. You are going to be okay.” He said patting my back. 

 

 

 

In the back of my mind I had a little voice saying ‘You have to stop crying, you have to be strong, you can’t feel this now, you are an adult with a kid and you have to put yourself back together’, but that voice was lost in the middle of pain and grief. For the first time in four years, I felt like a kid again. A teenager lost in a sea of nightmares. Someone who lost all the hopes and dreams. I felt darkness surrounding me, and I didn’t feel like I was strong enough to fight against it. 

 

 

 

“I’ll take you home Dan. You need to rest, I’ll give you something to sleep and you will be better by the morning. Lets go home son.” I heard my dad saying, but I couldn’t find my voice to answer him. Home. Phil. Lizzie. Lizzie couldn’t see me like that. I can’t see my daughter, not now, not in this state. Oh my little Lizzie. So young, so sweet, so pure, she doesn’t deserve this, she doesn’t deserve all this pain, all this darkness. I can’t go home. 

 

 

 

“I can’t go home.” I struggle to say, still holding my dad as hard as possible, pressing my head against his shoulder, that is already wet with my tears. “Lizzie is there. I can’t face her right now, I am not strong enough. I don’t want to be strong enough, not tonight.” The words sound harsh, but I couldn’t deal with pretending to be okay. I wanted to hug Lizzie and never let her go, but not now, I need to put myself together before breaking her heart. “I have to be the one to explain it to her, but I can’t do it tonight. Please dad, I can’t go home.” I sound like a kid who is afraid of facing reality. Right now I am that kid. I want Clary, I want my friend back, the mother of my daughter. I want to see her smile, smell her shampoo, hear her laugh. Just like that I feel like a light was switched on in the back of my brain. “Take me to Clary’s.”

 

 

 

“Dan, you shouldn’t stay there alone. I can’t stay there with you, I have to stay here with Riley, there are so many things to be done, things that I don’t want you to worry about, things you don’t need to think about right now, but I can’t stay there and you shouldn’t be alone. Let me take you home, Lizzie is probably asleep already, I can ask your mother to put her in our room so you can have your privacy for tonight. You shouldn’t be alone.” He said, pushing me away from his body and trying to clean the tears on my face. 

 

 

 

“I need Clary. I need to feel closer to her. Please dad, take me to her place. I need to be alone, please.” I beg, rising my head to look in his face, he agrees, placing his arms around my shoulders and walking us to an exit door. The car drive to Clary’s is short, I see the streets flashing trough my eyes but my brain is far. My brain keeps focusing in the darkness that I can feel growing inside of me, like a grief monster, telling me I won’t ever be strong again, that I won’t ever feel alive again. I say goodbye to my dad leaving the car, as soon as we reach the house. I’ve been here just a couple of days ago, but it doesn’t feel the same. I take my shoes and jacket off. I don’t feel like turning on the lights, and I move around only guided by the light of the moon coming trough the windows. I sit down on the couch and let everything sink in. 

 

 

 

The floor feels colder, the walls feel closer, the silence is like a blade trough my ears. Everything seems different but at the same time, familiar. I can see the pictures around the house. So many smiles, so many great memories. Things the won’t be kept in Lizzie’s little brain, things that with time will fade and she will only remember trough pictures. So many lost memories, so much darkness. I decide to drink a cup of water with a little bit of sugar, so I can try to calm down. I need to put my thoughts in order in my brain, but I can’t find strength for it, I can’t find determination enough to move my legs to the kitchen.

 

 

 

I feel weak, incapable, unable, inferior. I feel like a coward. I can’t even face my own daughter. I don’t deserve to be a father if I can’t put my daughter’s needs before mine. She needs me tonight, and I’m here, hiding from her. I hate myself. I hate myself even more when I realize that I really won’t be able to do it. I am a disappointment to my family, to my daughter, to Clarisse. I feel angry. Angry at myself, angry about life, angry about death, angry about destiny, angry about the future. I feel so angry that I am alive when Clary can’t be. I’m so angry that I will be able to see my girl grow up, fall in love, get married, have children, when her mom can’t. It was supposed to be me. Lizzie can grow up without me, she have been doing that for her whole life. How can I tell Lizzie that this is it? Her mom won’t ever come back. Her mother won’t hug her again, won’t kiss her again. This isn’t fair. 

 

 

 

I reach for a picture that is in the table by the couch, one with Clary in the Manchester Eye. She was 7 months pregnant and decided that we should walk around a bit, so she could feel some sun light in her skin, supposedly that was good for the baby. It didn’t work pretty well because it was Manchester, not even 20 minutes after we left the house the rain was pouring down on us. She was so sad that the sun had left, that I decided we needed ice cream and a ride on the Manchester Eye, her favorite place in the city. She was wet but smiling. She looks great, just laughing with an ice cream in her hand and the view behind her. It was such a great day. Why did she have to leave us? Leave me? Why couldn’t she be strong enough? Why did I have to be strong enough when she wasn’t? I hate her.

 

 

 

A wave of anger flows trough my body and I trow the picture frame on the other side of the room. Glass splashes everywhere while I can feel the tears coming back to my eyes. In seconds I’m sobbing again, sat in the couch. I get up and reach for the next picture, Clary, Lizzie and Riley on Clary’s graduation. This one breaks by the entrance door. I feel angrier. I don’t know why I am breaking things, but I feel better doing it. I toss some more pictures around. I break her favorite ceramic elephant, the one that I bought for her in India. I grab a flower vase with dead flowers on it. Dead flowers. No more life on it. Like Clary. This one I don’t have strength enough to look where it goes. I can feel water around me feet though, so it can’t be far. I’m tired. I don’t wanna fight. I don’t wanna feel. I know I am on the floor because I feel water soaking my legs, I put my hand by my side and I feel more pain, but I don’t know where it comes from. I feel the silence, the darkness, and then I don’t feel anything else. I’m completely numb.

 

 

 

“DAN!” I hear a faint scream, I don’t know where it comes from. I feel hands touching me and I try to figure out what is happening. I feel someone shaking me, I know that someone is trying to wake me up from darkness, but I can’t find enough remaining energy in my body to open my eyes to see who it is. And then I feel it, his embrace. It reminds me of home, it gives me strength, it gives me light. Phil. The sun ray in a rainy day. I reach for his back, trying to push myself in his embrace, trying to keep me from falling into the abyss again. Phil is here. I’ll be okay. I can’t open my eyes, not yet, but I have my face pressed against his neck, my head resting in his shoulders. I’m okay. I’m strong enough. I am going to be okay. I can do this. “Oh God you are hurt. We need to clean this.” He says, reaching for my left hand. I could feel the pain now. I could feel all the pain. The emotional one and the physical one. I have a cut in my hand. I can feel the blood dripping from it. “Hey Dan, talk to me. Can you feel your hand? Can you feel your arm? Please tell me you can move your arm.” He begs, and just like that he can make me laugh. Its more like a heavy breath mixed with a sob, but its enough for now. It takes my head out of everything else.

 

 

 

“Or course I can move my arm, you spoon. I’m hugging you, aren’t I?” I say, in a husky scratchy voice. 

 

 

 

“Oh thank God, you are okay.“ He breathes deeply. “Come on, can you get up? We need to clean your hand. Dan, if you keep pressing it against my back it will hurt more, come one, get up.” He says, trying to push out from our embrace. “Come on Dan, you are destroying my favorite jumper with your blood.” He jokes before I release him from my arms. “Good. Can you walk? Do I need to carry you? Can you feel your legs?”

 

 

 

“I can feel my legs.” I agree, getting up from the floor, and then I fail, falling back to it. “Or maybe not.” 

 

 

 

“Its okay, I’ll help you.” He says, putting his arm behind my back and helping me get up from the mess in the floor. We move to the kitchen and I sit on the breakfast stool. Phil walks around until finding a towel and a bowl, that he fills with water. He sits on the other stool and starts cleaning my arm. I can feel the cut, it is only in my hand and it hurts pretty bad, but my arm is all bloody, so he starts with that. Once he finishes cleaning the arm, he analyzes my hand. It is bad. “It’s not that bad.” He answers to my thought, making me realize I just said that out loud. “It is a pretty deep cut, but I’ve had worse, you will be okay.” He smiles, but not enough for his tongue to stick out, like it does when he is really happy. No one is happy today. There are only fake smiles and half laughs. 

  
  


 

 

“She is dead.” I say. It is hard to say it, but I have to. I have to tell my best friend that our best friend is gone. Phil stops his work in my hand for a second, I know he is trying to process it, he is frozen. I feel a tear falling in my hand and then he hugs me again. 

 

 

 

“I know. Your dad told me. I’m so sorry Dan, I really am. I love her too, I know it hurts.” He says, pulling me into his chest. And then he proves once again to me the reason why he is my best friend. “Its okay to feel sad. It is okay to feel angry, and hurt, and lost, and weak. It’s okay not being strong all the time, you can cry, you can scream, you can punch the walls and mirrors if you want. You don’t have to be pretend with me.” And I break again, sobbing, Phil knows me so well. I don’t know when he finishes with my hand, or where he got the bandage he used to make pressure on it, but I know he is moving me around the house. I’m still crying, I’m in pain, I don’t feel like walking, but he is pushing me somewhere. He sats me on the seat cover of the toilet. “You need a shower, I brought you clothes. Do you need help or you think you will be okay? I don’t want to leave you, but I don’t know if you need help because of your hand.” He says, getting a little blushed. 

 

 

 

“I’ll be okay. Can you bring me my clothes? I won’t lock the door so you feel better, just in case something happens.” I say, trying to think straight. I can sink down in the pain again later. Phil agrees with me, leaving the room so he can get my things. I take my shirt off, and I can see the blood on it, its fully ruined. I take my jeans off before Phil coming back, but I wait for him to leave the bathroom and close the door before taking of my boxers. I take a quick shower, trying not to wet my bandage, and I put my clean PJs on. When I leave the bathroom I find Phil sat on the floor, outside of it. He has his legs pushed up and his head resting in his knees. He is rocking his body and his hands are moving up and down in his arms, as if he is trying to comfort himself. I know he is crying. With all my pain is almost easy to forget that Phil is suffering too. He has lost Clary too. We were a team. The secret squad that no one knew about. Dan, Phil and Clary, conquering the world one little step at a time. We were a family. “Do you want to take a shower too?” I ask, not knowing what to do. Well, I know I should hug him and say that everything was going to be okay, but I didn’t want to lie. He turns his head up to me and I see all the tears coming down his cheeks when he agrees. It breaks my heart. “I’m sorry too.” I say lowering on the floor to hug him, he holds me crying on my chest. I get back on my feet, bringing him with me. “We will be okay.” I say, trying to making him feel better. 

 

 

 

“I don’t know if we will.” He says. “But we will try.” He promises, cleaning his tears and opening a small smile. Phil is so much stronger than me. “For Clary and for Lizzie.” 

 

 

 

“For us.” I tell him, helping with his tears, and hugging him again. 

 

 

 

“For us. All of us.” He agrees, leaving me so he could take his shower. I move around the house, going for that cup of water, I feel a little bit dehydrated. I decide for a chamomile tea, hoping that would make me sleepy and I could rest. I make one for Phil too. I walk around the living room, waiting for Phil to leave the bathroom, because I can’t find strength to walk into Clary’s room by myself. I know we need to sleep there, its the only bed in the house that will fit one of us, I just can’t go in there alone. Phil leaves the bathroom at the exact moment I pick a picture of the four of us from a shelf. “You are not going to break that one too, are you?” He asks. “I won’t stop you if you want to, but I would recommend not doing it, it’s my favorite one.”

 

 

 

“I won’t break it. I was just looking.” I comment, placing the picture back. “I’ve made us tea. I  didn’t bring yours because of… well, my hand.” I tell him, showing my cup of tea in my hand.  “We should go to bed, its 2am, we will have a long day tomorrow.” I go back to rational, methodical Dan. I can think clearer when Phil is around. I feel like pain is manageable when we are together. 

 

 

 

“Oh, thanks for the tea.” He says, moving to the kitchen and grabbing his cup. I watch him moving around the place trying not to step in all of the broken glass and water mess I’ve made. Phil returns to the corridor where I’m standing, he has a strange look in his face. “Yeah… We should… Are we going to sleep in her bed? I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it.” 

 

 

 

“It’s too late to go back home, and I want to feel close to her. She won’t mind. Well… She wouldn’t mind.” I say, going back to sad Dan. I feel my heart sinking in again, but I don’t let the pain drown me. I am strong enough. I’m gonna be okay. We are going to be okay. “Let’s go to bed.”

 

 

 

“Yeah, lets go to bed.” He agrees with me, moving down the corridor and opening Clary’s room door. Everything looks clean and organized, my mom made sure to come and clean the house a few times since Clary’s accident, in case of someone needing to stay here or something. Her bed is small. Its a double bed but it isn’t a big one, it is almost half of my king size bed, but I don’t care. I don’t feel like sleeping alone and having my private space anymore, I want Phil. I need to feel safe, I need to hug someone, the small bed will just make it easier. 

 

 

 

Being back in her room is weird. We’ve had plenty of nights awake here, taking care of Lizzie, discussing her future, discussing my future, Clary’s future. Plans that were made and now would never be fulfilled. This is the same room that Phil and I told Clary that we were planing on writing a book and doing a tour, in one of the nights that we left Lizzie in my mom’s place so we could have a friends night, to talk and have fun. This is the place we were when Lizzie decided to question us why her daddy and mommy were not together as all of her school friends parents were, and where we explained to her about loving people in different ways. Being in her room is weird but feels good, it gives me a warm sensation that Clary is still here, that she is around, watching us trying to put our pieces back together.I climb into the bed, it smells like clean sheets and shampoo. Her shampoo. Phil is laying on my side, really close to me, with a semi-wet hair.

 

 

“Did you use her shampoo?” I ask.

 

 

 

“I did. Sorry. I needed something to remind me of her. Does it bother you?” He asks, worried.

 

 

 

“Not really. I feel like I should be bothered because its her stuff and I don’t know, it doesn’t feel right, but I can’t judge you, its a good feeling having her scent around.” I say, and realize what I just said. “This sounded creepier than I thought it would.” 

 

 

 

“It’s okay.” He answers, making himself comfortable in the bed, and turning his body to look at me. We just stay like that, looking at each other for a few minutes before moving even closer. I could see the pain hidden behind Phil’s eyes. He is so strong, people usually don’t give him the credits he deserves. I try to imagine my life if Phil didn’t exist in it, but I can’t. I can’t imagine a life without Phil. Without Phil I would have never decided to go to Manchester Uni, I wouldn’t have met Clary and Lizzie wouldn’t exist, I wouldn’t have youtube, TABINOF, TATINOF, and all the  other amazing opportunities I’ve had in life. I might even not be alive anymore. Phil is the reason why I am here, why I was strong enough to continue fighting, continue trying, getting up and moving forward. The best friend anyone could ever ask, the best person to be around. Sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve Phil in my life. “What’s wrong?” He asks.

 

 

 

“Nothing… Just thinking about stuff, life, you know…” I answer, trying to change the subject. 

 

 

 

“You have the ‘You are too good to me, I don’t deserve your friendship’ look in your face, stop with it.” He says. Why does he have to know me so well? “Common, lets sleep, I’m tired.” He comes even closer to me, pushing me against his chest so I can feel safe and comfortable. I feel his face pressed against my hair and I place my arm around his torso. I can feel the tea and the stress of the day catching up to me, and I start to fall asleep. I struggle against it for a second, so I can say one last thing to Phil before falling into the darkness of my dreams.

 

 

 

“I love you.”

 

 

 

“I love you too Dan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanna end this chapter with a little story for you guys. I have an uncle who suffered a stroke and an aneurism last month. He was considered dead by the doctors, only kept breathing by the machines attached to him. No brain activity at all, the doctors said that he was done. My cousin, his daughter, didn’t accept the doctor’s words about it, she wouldn’t let them turn the machines down. In less that 48h after the diagnosis of his death, he woke up. He is already talking again, he lost some movements of facial muscles and he can’t control his arms and legs pretty well yet, but he is alive, happy, healthy. I am not changing ‘My Little Baby Llama’ just because I learnt that there is always hope, and we should never give up on people. Clary is dead, we are not changing that. But I wanted to tell you this, because I know that one of you out there might (lets hope not) face this situation in life one day, and I want you to know that it is okay to have faith and to hope for the best and keep believing in the strength inside people. Miracles do happen, they are rare and sometimes it hurts more believing in their existence than pretending they don’t exist, but they happen. So if you are facing one of these situations or know someone that is, stay strong, the light in the end of the tunnel might be hope.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been listening to “The sound of silence” non-stop to be on the mood for writing this. And after I finished I actually found a song that fits PERFECTLY with this chapter. The name is “I Won’t Let Go” by Rascal Flatts, and honestly, if I had heard this before writing I wouldn’t be able to make the fic and the song more perfect fot each other. I recommend you hear it to have full immersion.

**Phil’s POV  
**

Its cold outside. Really cold. There is a storm going on, and the windows are shaking. The whole house feels empty, cold, windy, sad. Dan is awake, looking at me but I know he is not seeing me right now. I can see in his eyes that he is once again in a road of memories, he has done that a lot in the last few days. I don’t know what I should do, should I wake him up to reality? Should I let him drown in his thoughts? Isn’t reality right now, worst than anything he might be thinking? I don’t know what I should say, so I move closer to him and I hug him, a gesture means more than a few sad words. 

 

  
  


It takes a couple of seconds, more like 30 or 40, before he reacts, I know he will hug me back, he is very needy of the physical contact these days, but it warms my heart a little bit when I feel his arms around me, I know he will be okay. We stay like that in the bed for a while. It’s cold and dark outside, its warm and safe in our little pillow fort. It just feels like our life today is just a big metaphor: outside is real life, waiting on us to get up and deal with it. The pillow fort is us, holding on to each other, keeping each other strong. I hope I’m strong enough for Dan, Lizzie, and myself. I hold him tighter, I don’t want to let him down when he needs me the most. I will hold him. 

 

 

 

The rain is falling down. It’s not like we can’t pretend its not there, the rain is there, the rain is here, its everywhere. We try our best to keep us dry, in our fort, but the rain catches up to us. I feel it wet in my chest, I try to clean up with my fingers but it’s just too much. We are crying again.

 

 

 

“I’m sorry.” Says Dan, with a husky voice. “I don’t want to be a crying mess for the whole day, I’m just trying to prepare myself for what is to come. I promise you I’ll be stronger, I just need to be here for a sec.” 

 

 

 

“You are strong enough. No one is expecting you to smile and go around making jokes today, you are a human being Dan, it’s okay to feel sad. Mom always said that crying isn’t a sign that you are weak, it’s a sign that you are strong enough to feel something.” I say, trying to adjust my position in the bed, so we are more comfortable. 

 

 

 

“Since when are you the most rational between the two of us?” He asks, as a joke, cleaning his tears.

 

 

 

“Since we’ve met, but I’m already the best looking one, and the most creative, I had to let you think you were the most rational.” I joke back, and he kinda laughs. Today’s goal achieved. Dan smiled. 

 

 

 

  
“I’ll have to agree with that. “ He answers looking at me. “No one can say that you aren’t creative enough.”

 

 

 

“And the best looking one. Don’t forget that.” I comment, trying to get another small smile from him, and I do. “Your mom sent me a text, she made us breakfast back in your place, Lizzie misses you. Are you ready to go back?” I ask him, in a more serious note.

 

 

 

“Yeah. I really want to see Lizzie right now. I feel so bad for leaving her yesterday, for not being a good parent and put her needs before mine. I need to start working more on my parenting skills… After all, I’m her only parent now, I can’t expect other people to do my job for me.” He agrees, cleaning the rest of his tears. I know he is already a little bit better than yesterday. He is accepting everything a little better today, he is stronger, and more focused. I’m really proud of him for that, so I hug him once again. “What was that for? Not that I’m complaining.” He asks. 

 

 

“Nothing, I’m just proud of your strength. Ready to go see your baby girl?” I ask, starting to leave our pillow fort.

 

 

 

“Yeah, I’ll just grab some new clothes for her, can you help me packing some of her teddy bears and toys too please? I don’t want her to miss anything else other than what she has to miss.” 

 

 

 

“Thats alright, I’ll grab a suitcase, do you want me to grab anything else? Something here in Clary’s room?”

 

 

 

“I don’t want to touch here. Not yet. I’ll come and help Riley later if she needs some support, but right now I just wanna leave her memory alive for a while. I’ll worry about the house and her belongings later. But thank you Phil, honestly, I have no clue of what I would do without here. I know I always tell you this, and I also know I don’t do anything enough to deserve your friendship and all you give me, but I’m really glad I have you in my life. Not only now, on the hard times, but always. Thank you.” He says, trying not to spill more tears. He gives me a little smile from the other side of the bed, before turning his back to me to leave the room. “You can go change first, I’ll meet you in Lizzie’s room.”

 

 

 

I agree with him, grabbing a change of clothes and moving to the restroom. I put my lenses back on, brush my teeth, fix the mess in my hair, put my clean clothes on, and I’m as ready as possible to start our crazy and sad day. I try not to think about what is happening today, I clean my mind and focus on grabbing some of Lizzie’s belongings. I meet Dan in the green and pink fairy room. He has two huge suitcases open, one with clothes, one with toys.

 

 

 

“I’ll take all her clothes, there is no point on keeping any here. Try to get as many of her toys as possible too, we will have to find a place back home to all of this but I don’t care about it right now. I don’t want to keep coming back here every time Lizzie needs something. I’ll go change and I’ll come back to help you.” He says, leaving the room, I just agree and try to pack everything that I can. I try to imagine where we are going to be fitting all of this in our apartment and I make a mental note to discuss  with Dan moving houses later on. I hear Dan leaving the restroom and moving to the living room, to clean the mess he did on the day before. Everything is already packed before Dan comes back from the living room. “You didn’t need to do everything by yourself.” He says.

 

 

 

“Thats okay, I didn’t notice I was doing everything until after I finished. I had some things on my mind. Are you ready to go?” I ask, grabbing the backpack I brought yesterday with our clothes. Dan agrees with his head, picking one of the suitcases, I grab the other one and we leave Lizzie’s room. Before leaving the house I grab the picture that I was looking at on the day before, and I fit it on my bag, leaving everything else on its exact place. I feel like this is the last time I’ll be in this house, and my stomach sinks a little bit. I’ll really miss it. 

 

 

 

We grab our cab to Dan’s house, in silence. The day is really grey, the rain isn’t going to stop anytime soon, and the wind is cold, sharp. We don’t feel like talking, not in the cab, not when we are leaving it, or when we are grabbing things on the trunk. We just walk side by side in silence, until we reach the door and open it. Lizzie doesn’t run to us when we open the door, as she is used to. She is sat at the couch, watching a cartoon, with her mermaid tail blanket on her. She looks happy, singing the cartoon’s song, and doesn’t even notice that we are back home. I hear a low sob coming from my side, and I look at Dan worried. He is crying again, looking at Lizzie. I drop our bags silently, and I move him to the dinner room, without anyone noticing. I hug him and I let him cry. 

 

 

 

“I can’t keep doing this. I’m not like this. I don’t usually cry for things, why am I this emotional? I usually contemplate death and the inevitability of it, I’m supposed to be used to it right now. Why is it so hard? It was never this hard when people used to die around me before. Why can’t I look to Lizzie without feeling like part of me is being crushed?” He asks hugging me back.

 

 

 

“Because you are a parent. That is why this hurt so much more than it did before. You don’t ever want to see your child suffering, you don’t ever want to know that they are in pain, that is why this hurts so much more for you right now. You know that Lizzie will suffer, and she will always miss her mom in her life, and you know how hard things will be for her from now on, that is why it hurts that much on you. You are feeling your pain and your child’s pain.” Answered Dan’s mom, coming from the kitchen behind us. She had some tears in her eyes and I know she is speaking from personal experience. Dan is in pain, he is suffering, this is her personal nightmare too. I take Dan’s arms from around me and give space for his mom to hug him and let him cry. He needs that. 

 

 

 

 

I leave them there and I move back to the living room to see Lizzie. Her cartoon has just finished and she is looking for something else around the room to put her attention on, so she spots me really quick on the room.

 

 

 

“UNCLE PHILLY!” She screams, trying to leave her blanket to run up to me. I’m able to get on my knees on the floor before she runs up to me and tackles me. “I missed you. Where is daddy? Did you bring him back? Grandma said that you were going to bring daddy home to me. We’ve made pancakes for you.” She said hugging me. I hug her back, glad to have her as a little shiny light in these dark times. Dan and Clary did a great job here. 

 

 

 

“Hey baby girl!Your dad you be right here, he is just talking to grandma, okay? So, can you tell me what else you’ve done today? Where is Miss Llama?” I ask getting up with her in my arms. I can’t risk her running to find her dad, not now than him and his mom needed a time alone. 

 

 

 

“Miss Llama is still sleeping, grandma said that she could sleep in today. I was watching Peppa Pig, watch it with me uncle Philly. We can pretend I’m a mermaid and you are the pirate on the boat passing near me, and we watch Peppa Pig together!” She says, trying to leave my arms to move back to her blanket on the couch. At the same moment Dan enters the room with his mom behind him. “DADDY!” Lizzie screams, kicking me to put her on the floor. I let her go and she runs as fast as she can to Dan. “I missed you daddy.” She says with a sad voice, almost like she was starting to cry. That kid went from 8 to 80 in seconds, she is really Dan’s daughter. 

 

 

 

 

“Hey baby Llama. I missed you too. So much.” He answered, sitting on the floor and pulling her into his arms. They stay there just holding each other on the floor for a while before Dan’s starting to talk again. “I’m so sorry baby girl. I am so sorry.” He says, and I see his tears falling down. I can see his mom leaving the room and I move to leave too, but he gives me a look that makes me stay. He can’t do this alone. I move closer to them and sit on the floor, a few steps away. Colin comes to me and lays on my legs, I pet him listening to Dan talking.

 

 

 

 

“Why are you crying daddy? I don’t like when you cry.” She says, using her little hands to clean his tears, that makes him cry a little bit more.

 

 

 

 

“I have to talk to you about your mommy, baby girl. I need you to be strong, and that is why daddy is crying, I never wanted you to have to be strong and suffer when you are so young like this.” He answers, grabbing her little hands and kissing them. “Do you remember and I told you that mommy was on the hospital and she was sleeping waiting to get better?”

 

 

 

“Yes daddy. Just like me when I was sick.” 

 

 

 

“Yes, just like you when you were sick. Well, do you remember when daddy told you that mommy was really sick, and she might have to go to live with her mom and dad into the skies?”

 

 

 

“Yes, you told me that she misses her mommy and daddy too, and she might want to go be with them. Is mommy moving with grandma and grandpa? Is she going to come back soon?” Lizzie asks, and it cuts my heart. Dan looks at me, tears in his eyes and I just try to send him some strength, he could really use some right now. 

 

 

 

“Mommy is going to live with her mom and dad, but she is never gonna leave you Lizzie. She doesn’t want to leave you, and I need you to understand that, okay? You mom loves you so much, we all do, but she has to go with her parents. She will always be with you in you little head and in your heart, don’t ever doubt that.” He says, as she starts crying. 

 

 

 

“I don’t want her to go live with grandma and grandpa. I want her to live with me. I want to play fairy and football with her after school. Is she coming back to play with me daddy?” 

 

 

 

 

“No honey, she is not coming back to play with you. I’m so sorry baby. I wish she could play with you and stay here with you and be with you forever, but mommy can’t.” He says, hugging her stronger, as she cried a little bit harder.

 

 

 

“Are you and uncle Philly leaving too?” She asks with a really low voice, and I almost can’t her her from the distance I am from them. 

 

 

 

“No, of course not. I told you this before, I’m not going anywhere. Phil is not going anywhere. You are going to stay with us, forever. We are going to play with you, and take you to school, and we are going to teach you how to play the piano and do everything you wanna do. We are not leaving you baby girl. Not now, not ever. We love you so much.” 

 

 

 

“Mommy loves me, and she left me.” She states, crying. I move closer to them to hold Dan’s free hand. 

 

 

 

 

“She didn’t have a choice Lizzie. She wanted to stay, but she couldn’t. If she could she would stay.” He chokes in his words, and I can feel the pain in them. 

 

 

 

“Did she leave already? I wanted to give her a gift so she doesn’t forget me, Daddy.” Lizzie says trying to get up from Dan’s arms to look in his face.

 

 

 

“I’m gonna take you to see her today, baby, so you can give her a gift and say goodbye. But you have to understand that mommy is still sleeping, and she wont be able to answer you. That doesn’t mean that she won’t love your gift and that she doesn’t love you. She is tired, she needs to sleep before her trip. Okay?” He makes sure to tell her, and she agrees with her head, still crying, but not that bad anymore. This went easier than I thought. Lizzie is such a smart kid, and Dan isn’t that bad himself. 

 

 

 

“Is uncle Philly coming with us?”

 

 

 

“Do you want me to?” I ask her, before Dan can say anything. I know he wants me there, but I don’t know if Lizzie will feel the same.

 

 

 

“Course I do!” She answers, leaving her dad’s embrace and moving closer to me. “Mommy said that you are like a daddy to me too, I want both of my daddies with me.” And she hugs me. Dan is smiling trough his tears, and I feel my own tears on my face. Is this girl really only four? I hug her strong against me and we stay like that for a while. She starts talking about her toys and witch one she wants to give her mom and she moves on to another subject. I see Dan getting up in his feet and I question him with my eyes.

 

 

 

“I think Phil and I need to have breakfast little llama. Have you eaten already?” 

 

 

 

“Yes, grandma made me pancakes with blueberries! Can I have some more?”

 

 

 

“You’ve eaten four already. If you have some more you won’t have lunch. Come Lizzie, lets get you dressed for the day, and leave you dad and Phil to eat, okay?” Says Dan’s mom, that were in a corner just watching our interaction. “I left the food on the microwave for you two, and there is your favorite cereal too Dan. Phil, there is almond milk for you in the fridge, if you want.” She said, before leaving the room with Lizzie walking behind her. I thank her, and I get up in my feet, moving towards the kitchen with Dan.

 

 

 

We had just finished breakfast when Dan’s dad and Riley walked into the house. He looks tired, and she looks like she is going to pass out at any second. I move towards her and I hug her, so she knows that she isn’t alone. She doesn’t have to be alone. I know Dan is hugging his dad, and they start talking about paperwork and things that need to be set. I don’t want to be a part of it, I know Dan doesn’t want to either, even though he has to, and Riley is crying again, I don’t want her to suffer anymore. I take Riley upstairs to the guest room, and I sit with her to talk a bit. She is sad, she is scared, she feels alone. I hold her while she cries, I try to calm her down, I put a blanket over her once she finally falls asleep. Once I know that she is going to be okay, for the next couple of hours, I go back downstairs.

 

 

 

“Is Riley okay?” Asks Dan, once he sees me alone.

 

 

 

“She is sleeping. She hasn’t been sleeping very much, she didn’t want to leave the hospital until knowing what was happening. She is sad, and scared and alone, but she is resting a bit now so she will be alright. I’ll go check on her later.” I answer him, sitting on the couch next to him. His dad is in his chair, right in front of us. “What’s going on?” I ask when I feel the tense air around the room.

 

 

 

“Dad doesn’t want us to take Lizzie home with us, he doesn’t think I’m a good parent enough.” Dan answers, angry. I look shocked to his dad.

 

 

 

“You know thats not what I said Dan. I just meant that Lizzie will need a lot of attention right now, and I don’t think you will be able to give her everything that she needs. It would be much better for her to stay here in a safe home, where she will have your mom with her at all times, she will have people to play with her, and feed her, and listen to her, she will have psychological follow ups and she will be able to continue in her school. She won’t have to be raised by a single father whose job is basically just a hobby. You know that this will be better for her than taking her away from all of this and moving her to London.” He arguments back. 

 

 

 

“I’m sorry Mr. Howell, but I have to disagree with you. Elizabeth just lost her mother. She needs her father with her, she needs Dan. We will provide her with everything that she needs. We will take care of her, she will go to therapy if she needs to, she will have psychological treatment if she needs to. She will have both of us to play with her, and feed her, and listen to her. Dan won’t be alone, and I’m sure you know that our job is more than a hobby, and that we have enough founds to raise a child. She will go to the best school, and she will be happy with us.” I say, before Dan starts screaming with his dad. I’ve seen this film before. 

 

 

 

“I’m sorry Philip, but this a conversation between my son and I, about his daughter, and my granddaughter, I would appreciate if you could stay out of it.” He answers me, moving his attention back to Dan. Dan explodes before I can control him.

 

 

 

“You can’t talk to Phil like that. He is only trying to help. He has been there for me since we’ve met, he didn’t have to come all the way here with me, he didn’t need to spend the whole night awake watching me, to make sure I was okay. He didn’t have to offer to help, to try to make everything easier for all of us. But he does. And you have no rights to be rude to him when he is only showing you that he will always be here for me and my daughter, and our family, whenever we need him. Phil and I are completely able to take care of Lizzie. She needs us, you and mom have your own lives, she is mine. I’m sorry dad, but my daughter is coming with me and Phil.” Dan holds my hand, trying to make me feel safe, I let him know that I’m fine.

 

 

 

“She needs a family. A complete family, a mother, a father, a house. You can’t give her that. You are a 24 years old kid that lives with his friend and doesn’t know what he wants to eat for dinner, how are you expecting to deal with all the things that comes with raising a child? You are not capable of doing that, Dan.”

 

 

 

“He is more than capable. I trust him.” I say again. “Dan is not a kid anymore. He hasn’t been a kid for over 4 years now. He knows what is best for his kid, he has plans for the future. I’m sure we will be okay sir. You don’t have to worry about Lizzie or Dan, I’ll take care of them.” I assure him, thinking that would help. 

 

 

 

“You are not his boyfriend. You are not his husband. You are not his family. He is not supposed to need you to take care of him. You say he is a capable adult that can take care of his daughter, so I’ll let him do it. But an adult wouldn’t need you. I hope you understand that. Once he can’t take care of his daughter, his parents are the ones that he will run to find and ask for help. Not you.” Said Mr. Howell for the last time, leaving the room. Dan looks stressed and hurt. I’m hurt. But I can’t show this, not right now. 

 

 

 

“Hey Dan, its okay, don’t worry about it. We both know that we will be okay. Lizzie will love to live in London. She will have all the best things the world can offer. You don’t have to worry about this right now.” I assure him. He agrees with me. We decide to rest a bit before going to the hospital.

 

 

 

The next 24h pass trough my eyes as a horror movie. We go to the hospital. Clary looks amazing, almost healthy. Riley made sure to make up her to cover all the wounds before Lizzie walked in to see her. Lizzie gets to give her mother her gift and talk to her. She doesn’t really get what is happening, but she is sad and crying, and that’s enough to break Dan’s heart, and mine too. I try to say goodbye but I’m not strong enough, so I just hold her hand for a couple minutes and leave the room with Lizzie. I don’t wanna be there when they do it. Dan hugs me and I know he will need support for that moment, but he has his hands on Riley’s, and I know they will keep each other standing. They need that alone time there. Dan’s family say their goodbyes and we try to distract Lizzie on the gardens in the hospital. Dan’s mom takes Lizzie when its 5 to 6pm. Five minutes until everything is done. I sit back outside her room, thinking about life. Dan leaves the room and I’m there to hold him. I take him home, and I give him a pill to sleep. I can’t sleep, but I’m on the bed with Dan and Lizzie, holding them close to me while I cry. 

 

 

 

Dan wakes up at 4am. We are crying together. He takes a bath and change, and then he holds me until I fall asleep. In the morning we are informed of the schedule for the day. The funeral will be at 5pm, Dan is expected to say some words, he doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to. Only necessary people were called for the funeral. Friends from work and some family friends. No one knew exactly what was Dan’s part on Clary’s life, we talked about it and he didn’t care anymore, he didn’t feel like lying anymore, or hiding his daughter or pretending to be who he wasn’t. So Lizzie would be with us.  

 

 

 

Lizzie is wearing her favorite black dress, she is sad and she knows that her mom is never going to come back, but she is okay. On moments like this I just wish I was just a kid. There are more people crying than just us. No one really understands how the universe could be this mean. The priest says some beautiful words. Riley gives an emotional and heartbreaking speech, and then, its Dan’s turn. He walks to the front of the grave and grab the paper where we tried to put some words down this morning. He is nervous, he is sad, worried, but he tries his best. 

 

 

 

“The day that I met Clarisse Platt it’s going to be forever one of the top 2 days that changed my life. I was a weird kid with weird dreams. I had one friend that believed in my dreams, and an entire family telling me what I should do with my future. I used to have plans that weren’t exactly mine. I used to fight for causes that didn’t matter, I used to live a meaningless life, with meaningless wishes and stupid goals. I used to feel like I had nothing to hold on to, nothing to live for, but she changed that. From the first day we’ve met in uni, Clary never stopped telling me to live my life to maximum possible. To be happy, to dream big, to do what I love and be myself. She was half of the light in my life, when I felt like darkness was trying to consume me. She touched my heart when I had forgotten what it was like to have a heart. She gave me a reason to live. She turned my world upside down. She gave me Lizzie.  Clary gave me the reason why I wake up everyday, why I always try my best, why I am always trying to be a better self. She gave me a daughter, and I will never be able to repay her for this. “ Dan’s words got lost in a few tears, that he cleaned of his face while changing the cards in his hands.

 

 

 

“Today I’m not saying goodbye to a friend, I am saying goodbye to pieces of my heart, to pieces of my future, to my daughter’s mom, to part of the light inside of me. Clary won’t be able to dress our baby girl for her first day in middle school. She won’t be able to be there for her when she first starts dating. They won’t be together in our daughter’s wedding. Clary won’t ever have a wedding, and she always dreamed with having a big one, at the beach, with the sunset behind her. Today we say goodbye to lost dreams. Today I…” He stops. He is crying and his voice is breaking.  His face goes from suffer to angry, and I know that our speech that we wrote this morning is not going to be used anymore. I wait for the breakdown. “You know what, today I don’t want to say goodbye. I can’t.” He says, leaving the cards, that fell on the floor over his feet. “I can’t say goodbye because I don’t understand how this is happening.” Silent tears falls down from his face. “My mind can’t work around his, I don’t understand how this can be fair. How life can be this mean to people. She had a daughter. A four years old daughter. She had a sister, who has no one else in life. She had me, and Phil. We had her. How can any of this be fair? How can losing someone that young, and kind, and brave, and beautiful, be fair? Why does shit happen to people who doesn’t deserve it? I deserve to suffer, I deserve to be alone, I deserve to be in pain. I am a shame to my family. The brainless teenager who gave up on Law School, got a girl pregnant and has a hobby as a job. I can deal with all this shit. But Lizzie? Why does she have to grow up without her mom? She doesn’t deserve this. I just can’t understand. I’m sorry.” Said Dan, breaking into loud sobs. His whole body was shaking, and I could see that he was not going to be able to hold himself in a couple of seconds, so I get up to reach him, before he colapses in his knees. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He kept saying in my arms on the floor. I had never seen Dan break like that, I was scared. 

 

 

 

“It’s okay Dan, you will be okay.” I tried to say, but my tears started mixing with his, as I pressed my face against his jaw line, to hold him as close as possible, so he could understand that he wasn’t alone. “We will be okay.” I make sure to affirm him once again.

 

 

 

“Daddy?” Said Lizzie, trying to understand what was happening. She walked trough the grass so she could reach us, and looked for her father’s arms. “Are you hurt daddy? Why are you crying? Do you need a kiss to make it feel better?” 

 

 

 

“I think daddy could use hugs and kisses, little Lizzie llama.” I said, pulling her into our embrace. For a moment a completely forgot where we were, until Dan’s mom came to us, trying to put us in our feet, so they could continue with the service. We moved back to our seats, Lizzie in Dan’s arms, our hands connected, never leaving each other. 

 

 

 

The service ended quickly than I expected, or maybe it just passed without me noticing, since my mind was focused on massaging Dan’s hands to calm him down. The few people that came, left really quickly, leaving us to deal with our feelings alone. Dan’s family left, taking Riley with them. She would be spending a few days in Dan’s house, until she was feeling better. Dan, Lizzie and I were standing over Clary’s grave. I was just watching Dan explaining things to Lizzie, about Clary, death, graves,  cemeteries. I didn’t feel like that was the proper time, but Dan needed that. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye, but he needed to. For his daughter. 

 

 

 

It took a couple of minutes and shared tears for us to be ready to leave the cemetery. We didn’t want to walk around, so we went straight home, everyone could take a shower, and sleep. Dan needed to sleep a bit, and I needed to think. Think about me, Dan, Lizzie, and the future. I know I have to be strong, but I don’t know how to be strong when Dan is so broken. 

 

 

 

We get to the house and there are a few people there, just talking, eating, trying to wrap their minds around the way that life and death work. We didn’t want to talk, so we moved upstairs to Dan and Lizzie’s room. There is no words in the room. We are just silent. Lizzie falls asleep in the middle of the bed, and me and Dan just work ourselves around her, trying to make a little fence with our bodies, trying to protect our little girl. We are hurt and in pain, but we are together. I can see in Dan’s eyes that he is thinking the same. We find a way to connect our hands over Lizzie’s head, and we take a nap, hoping that once we wake up  things will be easier. 

 

 

They are not.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Dan’s P.O.V**

“IT’S HIS DAUGHTER PETER! I don’t want to be separated from my granddaughter either, but it’s his choice. If he wants to take her and move her to London we have to be here to support him, not tell him that he can’t do that. He is a responsible man now, he is almost 25, he has a great job, he might not be ready to give up some stuff for her, but he has been her father for over 4 years, he knows what he is doing.” I hear the screams from my parents room as soon as I open my eyes.

“You don’t understand Adelaide, that kid won’t have a normal life, not living with them! She needs a safe, normal house, with a mom and a dad, and all the support she might need. He can’t provide her that. He wants to put her into a small prision-like apartment, with two men that act like teenagers, in the middle of the craziest, loudest, city in the country, to live in their bachelor lifestyle. Or even worse, if they are not telling us something.” 

 

“And there you go again, with this homophobic crap. They are not dating Peter, they are not a couple, and even if they were its none of your business. They might be bissexual and live together but that doesn’t make them a couple. And if they were, that would be even better for Lizzie. She loves Phil, he is great with her, he has been a second father for her during her whole life, don’t you think that she sees him as father too? Phil has been there for her since day one, just like Dan. Elizabeth never had only a mother and a father, she always had a mother and two fathers. You know that she will be happier with them, than here. I know that you’ve never accepted Daniel’s sexuality, and you keep telling yourself that is just a phase and that he is not serious about it, but you have to start accepting that your son is bi. And, as shocking this might sound for you, that doesn’t change the fact that he is a great, loving, worried father, that will move mountains and oceans for his daughter.” 

 

“I won’t let my granddaughter grow up thinking that its normal to have two fathers. She needs to know that the socially accepted family is formed by a mother, a father, and the kids. Not this freak modern “families” that the world tries to push down on our guts. Daniel is an adult and he can do whatever he wants with his life, but he is not going to take Elizabeth down on this road. She needs a mother and a father to grow up with.” I look at Phil and he is staring at me. I can feel his heartbeat in our hands attached together, his heart it’s beating fast and strong. Phil is stressed. I try to calm him down but rubbing his hand, while I get out of the bed trying not to wake Lizzie up. I tell him to stay there and I move towards my mom’s room. I feel the blood pumping into my head, and I see red with anger. 

 

“Thats the thing father, she doesn’t have a mom anymore. She will never have this perfect “normal” home that you keep coming back to in your speech. Phil and I are all that she gets from now on, so I’m sorry to say, but that will have to be enough.” I say pushing myself trough their door, taking a deep breath before talking again. “While you are in the subject, I hope you understand that I don’t expect you to accept or respect me and my sexuality, even though you should, but I do expect you to respect Phil. Phil and I have been friends for almost seven years now, we have been trough a lot of things together, Clary’s pregnancy and Lizzie’s life included, and we did get closer than friends during this time, but this isn’t your business, and you shouldn’t worry about it. And while I’m already used to be the shame in your life, I’m getting tired of all this bullshit you keep saying in my back since I was brave enough to tell you about my sexuality almost four years ago.” I take another deep breath before turning to my mother. “I’m sorry you have do deal with his bullshit because of me. Thank you for everything, but I think we will be moving back to London today, you should go say bye to Lizzie.” I tell her, giving her a hug, before turning back to my dad, and she leaves the room.

 

“You don’t get to make this decision. You…” I cut his words before he gets deeper in his shit.

 

“I do get to make this decision. I do get to move MY child to MY house, that I pay with MY money, from MY job, and YOU don’t have a word on it. You don’t get to make any decisions in my life. As you said, I am an adult and I can do whatever I wanna do with my life. Lizzie is the biggest part of my life, so thats settled. Goodbye Father.” I say leaving the room, without giving him time to scream at me again. I move back to my room and I find Phil packing some of our stuffs, while my mom talked to a sleepy Lizzie on the bad. I’m glad Phil knows me this well. “Don’t worry about my stuff, I have enough back home. Just call the car, I’ll grab Lizzie’s bags and we can go home.” I tell him, that stopped doing his packing to look at me. 

 

“Dan you don’t have to go right now, I’ll talk to your dad, you know that he didn’t mean half of those things he said.” 

 

“Mom, I don’t wanna fight you too. I love you for defending me and Phil and for believing in us, but both of us know that he meant every single word he said. He has been saying those type of things for years, and I don’t expect him to change soon. At the same time, I don’t have to be here to hear it all. He can say all the shit he wants, as soon as I leave his roof.” I put my hand in her shoulder to show that I am okay. “Take Lizzie to say bye to everyone, we are leaving in 15 minutes.” I tell her, before moving back to Phil and help packing.  My mom leaves the room with Lizzie in her arms, Phil moves towards me and hugs me. I hug him back as strong as I can. I needed that.

 

“You will be okay. I promise you. I’m here for you, I won’t let got. We will do this together.” He says. We stay like that for a few moments, and then we are back on packing. In less than 12 minutes we are all packed, bags in the car, Lizzie in her car seat, and we are moving back home. 

 

Phil sleeps trough the whole drive home, trying to get over his car sickness. I take the time to talk to Lizzie tring to explain to her about how she was going to move schools and she might stay home for a while, and she looks confused. I decide to talk about it with her later, so I spend the rest of the way reading a little bit more of Harry Potter to her until we get home. Our house is freezing. I take Lizzie to my room and leave her bags there, Phil is turning the heater on, so I work on the fireplace, until we get a cozy lounge to lay in. Its only 9pm, but it feels like 10 days has passed since the funeral. I’m tired, emotionally drained, a crusty dry sponge in need of moisture, so when I fall asleep in the middle of Big Hero 6 with Lizzie all over me, it’s not a big surprise. 

 

“You really should go to bed.” Says Phil, taking an sleeping Lizzie from my arms, waking me up. “I just made your bed for you and Lizzie.” 

 

“You didn’t have to.” I answer, trying to get up. “You could have just waken me up.”   
  
  
“Thats alright. I was recording a video, I finished earlier than I thought, so I had time.”

 

“I really need to work on a video.”

 

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to. But yeah, the fans are worried already.”   
  
  


“They are always worried or wondering about our lives.” I comment, as he puts Lizzie down on the bed. “You’re not sleeping here tonight?” I ask when I see that he made a little fort with pillows around one of Lizzie’s side. 

 

“I’ll edit for the biggest part of the night, and I don’t think I’ll be a good company today, to be honest. But if you need me, you can always find me across the corridor. You know I wont kick you out of the bed if you try to join me.” He gives me a little smile before going out of the room. I worry about the way that Phil is acting, but  I don’t judge, we’ve had a pretty bad day and all I want to do is pass out and stop worrying about life. I take a little bit of time choosing my clothes, and I make sure Lizzie is safe before heading down stairs for a shower. I take my time, trying to wash off all the bad things of the past few weeks, and the funeral earlier today, off my body. I work on relaxing before heading to bed to sleep it off and renewing my energies. I put my Pooh onesie and I fall asleep before even opening Tumblr on my phone.

 

The next day isn’t easier or harder. Mom calls to ask how we are and talk to Lizzie. My baby girl is acting fine, she is sad but that doesn’t stop her from playing with me and Phil the whole day. Phil cooks for us, and I clean the mess, we talk and watch cartoons, Lizzie sleeps and Phil goes back to his room. He is distant and weird, but I assume it’s just because of Clary. I’m sad, distant, and weird too, so that’s not a big deal right now. The week passes without much happening. The fans were going crazy, so I post a video about memes, joking about my life when I think that there is nothing else to laugh about on it. I make a live show when Phil takes Lizzie outside in our little back garden, to play around. Louise calls and ask about everything, I try to explain it to her, but it hurts too much. We talk about schools and she promises me that she will help me find the best option for Lizzie. We decide that she will only be going back to school when the new school year starts. I try to be strong and responsible, but I feel weak and alone. Phil hasn’t really been there. Its really late when I decide to confront him about that. 

 

“You promised me. I never thought that you would break that promise.” I say, when we are both watching an episode of Free! on the TV. 

 

“What are you on about?” 

 

“You promised that you would be here for me, no matter what, and you haven’t. You have been distant. You don’t sleep in my bed anymore, you don’t wait us to eat breakfast even though you’ve cooked it, you don’t make funny jokes and comments during our animes nights. I don’t understand. I thought you would take care of me, in the moment I need you the most, but all you do is make me feel alone when we are together. I’m hurting and it doesn’t feel like you care.” I say focusing on the floor in front of me. I don’t wanna look at him.

 

“Have you ever stopped to think that I am hurting too? That I need space and that’s why I’m keeping a little bit of distance right now? Have you stopped to think about the fact that your bed here is really small compared to the one in Reading, and it doesn’t fit both of us with Lizzie on it? I need to feel good in order to help you get better Dan, but I need to have space to put my thoughts in order so I can get better myself, I won’t be able to think right when the three of us are smashed together in your bed. And don’t you dare saying that I haven’t been here for you. I make sure you are eating, that you took a shower, that you work, that your daughter is fed, that she showered, that she is laughing and having as much fun as possible, while you look like a robot zombie walking around the flat without seeing the day light for over a week. I love you Dan and I’m trying my best to help you, but I’m feeling lost and lonely too. The grief is here for both of us, not only you, I’m just trying to get over it by myself, so you don’t have to feel both of our pain, as I have been feeling since day 1.”

 

“You don’t have to pass trough it alone. I thought we were going to do it together. You’ve offered to help me out and be here for me, I didn’t think you needed me to offer it back to you, I thought it was obvious. None of us have to pass trough it alone, that’s why we are here back home, so we can have each other. That is why I told Louise to tell PJ and everyone else about it, so if we need someone else, we have our friends to reach. The way you have been doing it, it doesn’t work. You are making me sad, you are suffering, none of us is really living right now. I miss my friend Phil.”

 

“It’s time to realize that none of us is going to be the same as we were before.” He says, looking in my eyes for the first time since the beginning of our conversation.

 

“That doesn’t mean that we have to be worse than before. We can be better, right?” 

 

“Yes, we can be better. But thats the point, we need time to get better. You can’t come in here asking for an explanation when I’ve been doing my best since the beginning. I just needed a break so we can move on. I just hope you understand that.” He says, holding my face so I couldn’t move my eyes from his. I know then that I’m wrong on being mad at him, when we are in fact in this together, just dealing with things differently. I feel bad for asking of him more than I should. 

 

“I do. I just missed you.” I say trying to move closer to him, in a way to say sorry. We are hugging each other on the couch. 

 

“I was here all along.” He made sure to assure me while moving his arms around my torso. “Come on, lets go to bed. I’ll go make a pillow fort around the other side of Lizzie and you sleep with me today, I think we could use that.”

 

“I think we could. I’ll brush my teeth and I’ll meet you in your room then.” I say, getting out of our hug. Before leaving the room I turn back to Phil to say one more thing. “I’m sorry I judged your friendship skills.”

 

“Thats alright, I’d be judging yours too.” He smiled, leaving the room. I moved to the bathroom to brush my teeth and prepare for bed. I made sure to check on Lizzie and giving her one more blanket before crossing the hallway to enter Phil’s room. The door is open and he is sat on the bed reading one of his Stephen King’s books. 

 

  “Haven’t you finished that last year?” I ask, making conversation while getting under his blankets. 

 

“Yep, but I’m reading it again, there are still a few parts that I can’t quite understand, this is just too much for my brain to assimilate in one reading.” He has his glasses on, and seems really focused in his book, so I try to be quiet. I’m moving around trying to get comfortable, but I just can’t. Phil notices it. “Something wrong?”

 

“I don’t know, I can’t get comfortable. It feels weird not having Lizzie cuddling up to me.” I say, sitting on the bed. 

 

“Do you wanna go back to your room?” He asks, putting the book aside, turining the bed side light off, and slipping under the sheets. 

 

“Not really. She kicks a lot.” I lay down again, turning my body to face him.

 

“Do you want me to cuddle up to you? I’m a little bit bigger than Lizzie, but that might make you more comfortable.” He offers, turning his head to look at my face. I agree with my head.

 

“Yeah, I think that would help.”

 

“Come closer then.” He says, passing an arm around my waist and pulling me closer to his body. I feel him cuddling up to me, his head under my chin, and I automatically feel warmer, a little bit happier. His body is molding around mine, and I pass my arms around him, to keep him in place. It feels normal, it feels good. “If I call you daddy, would that make you happier?” He jokes, I can hear his smile in his voice.

 

“Calling me daddy might lead both of us to a happy end, if you know what I mean.” I joke back, trying to hide the blush in my face that came with that thought. 

 

“You and I both know that I would be daddy, and you would be the crying baby.” He strikes back, making me laugh.

 

“Thats really funny Phil. You might be older, but we both know that I’m the daddy here. I’ve never been the one to beg and cry for milk.” I wink, and then realize that he can’t see that I’m winking. “I’m winking, by the way.” He laughs. 

 

“Thanks, good to know that you are winking, that means that you are still awake.” He tries to move the direction of the conversation that he started, we were getting too far, with the lower inhibitions caused by the need of sleep. “We really should sleep though. Lizzie passed out early today, we are going to be up before we can fall into our third dream.” His voice is starting to sound distant and my brain isn’t really functional right now. His bed is comfy, warm, and his body against mine makes me feel like I’m in a personal safe bubble, so I can’t really control what I’m think or saying in this moment. 

 

“I don’t need a third dream, I have you.” And that’s the last thing I say before falling asleep.


	11. Chapter 11

**Dan’s POV**

 

I need Phil. Things get harder when he isn't around. It has been only six hours since he left to his house back in the North, for his birthday celebration with his family, and I already feel like I can't do this alone anymore. The problem isn't Lizzie, she is great, and she is taking things so much better than I thought she would. The problem is me. I don't feel like I am strong enough to deal with everything that is piling up over me if   I'm alone. 

 

I know I shouldn't be codependent on Phil, or anyone else for that matters, but in the middle of the mess that I've been thrown into, I just can't stop feeling that I'm not enough. 

 

I'm not enough of an adult, to be a good single father. I'm not enough of a son, to make sure to keep my mom informed about everything that is happening. I'm not a good professional enough to prepare a world tour by myself while Phil is having a weekend off. And I'm not a good friend enough to let Phil have a weekend off without feeling jealous of him. For the past 20 minutes I've been pretending to be a prince, ready to save it's princess from the beast protecting her castle, but I can't stop thinking that I'm not enough of a prince either, I can't save anyone. 

 

"And booom! You died." Said Lizzie, trowing my prince doll on the floor. 

 

"Wait, what?" I ask, pushing my attention back to our little play.

 

"You died. You weren't paying attention and the monster caught you." She said, pointing to the monster in our little game stage.

 

"But who is going to save you, my beautiful princess, from this oh terrible monster?" I make my worst Shakespearean accent, to make her laugh. 

 

"I'm a strong independent princess, I don't need a prince to save me." She said placing her hands in her waist. Clary taught her right. 

 

"So why did you ask me to be your prince, my warrior princess?" I joke, getting up from my sitting state to a one-knee position, to bound to her. Instead of laughing as I thought she would do, she held her head down. "Hey little llama, what's wrong?" I ask, trying to get into an eye to eye position with her, but she made it even harder putting her little hands in her face.

 

"I wanted you to play with me because you haven't been with me anymore. I wake up and you are not with me in the bed, you're with uncle Philly. When I want to play outside, you don't go with me. When I want to have ice cream, Auntie Louise or Nana takes me out. When I'm hungry, Uncle Philly makes me pancakes. When I need a shower, you tell me that I am a big girl and you don't help me much. Why don't you want to be with me anymore, Daddy? Is it because Mommy died and you don't like me without her?" She asked with her sweet voice, breaking my heart. 

 

"Of course not baby llama. Don't you ever think something like that again. I love you so much, you are my little bottle of light in life, I will always love you and want you around." I pull her into my arms. "Nana, Phil and Louise are just trying to help."

 

"I don't want their help, I want Daddy." She cries.

 

"Daddy is right here honey, I promise you that I'll never stop loving you or caring about you."

 

"So why don't you ever go out with me?"

 

"I don't know honey. I think I was too afraid of what people would say or do when they found out that you exist. Some of the people that likes me and uncle Phil, they don't actually have their heads in the right place. They want to know our address to wait outside in the streets, wondering around to pretend they were just passing by. They want to invade our privacy and make a huge fuss about it. They don't know you exist yet because if they did know they would probably follow you to school, try to kidnap you just to have a picture with me and Phil, or do something even worse just to post on Twitter that they know where we live and they have pictures with us or something like that. I know it's not fair with you little llama, but I'm scared of them."

 

"I don't understand Daddy."

 

"I know you don't, but you will one day, and you'll probably hate me and all of my fans when you do, but right now I just can't make myself trust them with your life, because I don't trust them with mine yet." 

 

"I would never hate you daddy." 

 

"I'll hold you to that in the future." I hug her even stronger and then I let her go. "Now, who wants to watch some cartoons eating popcorn?"

 

“Can we have some jelly too?” She asked, smiling and getting up from the floor.

 

“We don’t have any jelly here Lizzie, we can make some tomorrow.” I answer, trying not to make her sad again. “Maybe, maybe we can go out for some ice cream later, what do you think?” That might be my worst idea ever, but the smile in her face makes it worth it. She agrees with her head, starting to pack her toys. “Great! Go put your toys in the box in our room, and I’ll make the popcorn.” She obeys, grabbing everything and running thru the hallway, “Don’t run!” I scream to her, but she is already far. I move to the kitchen to start making us the snack, and my phone rings. It’s Phil on Facetime.

 

“Hello!” He says, when his face shows up in my phone. “I’m home!” 

 

“Yep, you told me that hours ago in your text.” I answer, placing my phone in one of the cabinets so I could look for the things I needed. “How was the train ride?”

 

“Crazy! There was this weird kid next to me, I thin she was possessed by a ravenous hamster or something like that.”

 

“What? A ravenous hamster? Why?” I ask, stopping everything I’m doing, in shock. There are just a few things in life that shocks me, most of them are things that happens to Phil on a daily basis. 

 

“Well, she was eating cheese, non-stop, while making weird rodent noises. And she used her knuckles to push food from the back of her teeth to the front of her mouth. I’m telling you, she was possessed.” His face was priceless. 

 

“So, what scared you the most? The rodent noises of the non-stop cheese eating?” I ask, returning my attention to the popcorn on the microwave. 

 

“The cheese eating, for sure.” He laughs. “So tell me, what have you two been doing since I left?”

 

“Well, we watched some cartoons, played a bit, Lizzie spread cream cheese all over your bed, now I’m making some popcorn to watch some movies. You know, same as always.” I joked, but with a serious face, trying to prank him a bit.

 

“CREAM CHEESE? You’re gonna clear it! I don’t care if you were the one to do the laundry, you’re gonna wash it.” He was mad. 

 

“I’m joking Philly. You’re bed is safe from the white creamy mess, don’t worry.” I laugh. 

 

“Safe from ALL white creamy mess? You know, I’ll be mad if I get home and there is some white shit in my sheets, we just washed it.” He joked back. I can’t let this opportunity pass.

 

“I can’t promise its clean of all the creamy mess, you know, first time in weeks I have a room to myself.” The eyebrows raise has the intention of trowing him off, and its effective. 

 

“Ew Dan, no! Disgusting mental image.” 

 

“You started it.” I say, laughing taking the popcorn out of the microwave and placing it into a bowl. “No, wait, I started it. Forget about it. So, how’s your old room? Still smelling like a funeral home?”

 

“Thank God no. Mom didn’t put flowers on it this time. I miss my plant friends, but I’m happy that my room doesn’t smell like a 90 years old lady.” He looks around to make sure his mom isn’t hearing him, once he is sure he is fine, he returns the attention to Dan in the phone. “Where’s Lizzie? I miss her already.” He asked. I look around me in the kitchen and I don’t see her. I asked her to put her toys away, but she’s too quiet now, and that scares me. I leave the kitchen without picking up my phone, so I can search for her. I scream her name around the house, but she doesn’t answer me. I look around my room, around Phil’s room, the lobby and at the bathroom. I can’t find her. My heart is almost umping out of my chest, when I find her asleep in the sofa-bed at the office. I wait for my heart to pick up a normal pace before remembering Phil on facetime, at the kitchen. 

 

“Sorry Phil, I just panicked for a second.” I say, entering the kitchen back. Phil is standing in the middle of his room making a mess with his backpack.

 

“What happened? Where is she? I was about to start packing to go back home.” He said as soon he saw that I was back.

 

“She is just sleeping, at the office couch.” I say, finally relaxing too. “She didn’t have a nap time today, I completely forgot.” I grab my popcorn and move to the lobby. I’m barely sat at the couch when Phil starts screaming at me. 

 

“Dan!!! I left you my to-do list. Its in the fridge door. She needs at least an hour nap everyday, usually around 3pm. And we play in the backyard around sunset, when the lighting is bed over there, and people can’t see who’s there. I told you she would miss that! You have to do both of our jobs while I’m out.” Phil made sure to let me know. “Wait, why are you crying? Dan? Why are you crying? TALK TO ME!”

 

“You are screaming at me because I’m a horrible father.” 

 

“No, no, no, you are not a horrible father Dan. You are an amazing father, you just need to do both of our jobs for a few days, and you are not used to it.”

 

“Its not your job. I’m her father, I’m supposed to be able to do all of this by myself. I’m supposed to know a ll of it, and to do all of it everyday. If I didn’t have you, I would have to deal with all of this by myself, but I can’t. I don’t know if I can. I don’t know how to be a single father Phil, I don’t know how to take care of a child without help. My dad was right. She needs him and my mom, my brother, her aunt, and everyone that she can get around her. We are not enough for her. She needs a stable house, not two guys who needs to check the sunset time to plan the hours to go out with her without fans noticing us and destroying her future.” I take a long breath before continuing. “I don’t think we can do it, I don’t think we should do it. I don’t feel like we are doing the right thing anymore.”

 

“STOP. Dan, just stop. You are letting your fear talk over you. We have been over this, we can do it. You can do it. You are an amazing father and I am pretty sure that Lizzie prefers to be with you than with your parents. You are her favorite person in the whole word, Danny, and you are completely able to raise your daughter, even if I wasn’t on board to help you with this, and I am, you could handle it just fine."

 

"What if she doesn't want me to do it?"

 

"Dan, Lizzie is loving it. She loves our flat and London, she is sad because of her mom, of course, but she is really happy there with us. She wants us to do it, and she needs us to be consistent with her caring. We can't keep moving her back to your parents house everytime you feel that this is too much. As you've said, she needs an stable house, and as long as we continue taking care of her, as we have been since we've got back home, she will have one."

 

"I wasn't talking about Lizzie." I say, making a pause, but Phil waits for me to continue. "I was thinking about Clary." I swallow my tears before continuing. "We have never talked about Lizzie's guard in case of her death, or mine for that matters, and I have no idea if she would approve this arrangement of ours or not. Maybe she would prefer my parents to raise Lizzie. Maybe she wouldn't like the fact that Lizzie is growing in a big city with so much danger and craziness around her. Maybe she would like Riley to have her, we don't know. How can I do something without knowing?" 

 

"You are letting your fears talk again. You need to be rational. Remember that Clary grew up without both of her parents and she always said that she would do anything for the opportunity of having one of them with her when she was growing up. Of course she would want you to be with Lizzie, there is no doubt there." Phil tried to put some sense in my thoughts, noticing that I was losing it.  "If that is not enough to make up your mind, think about the way you were raised and the way you want your daughter to be raised. You have great parents, but you really want Lizzie to grow up with their beliefs and way to see the word? You know that their generation isn't the most liberal that exists and the small town way of thinking isn't the greatest one for nowadays children. Do you really think that this is what Clarisse wants for her? Not trying to judge your parents, but do you really think that you dad's beliefs on the LGBT community is what you want your daughter to have?"

 

"No, of course not. I want her to be a good human being. That is why I keep thinking that I may not be enough, that I might do something wrong and destroy her future. I don't want to do that." 

 

"So don't do that. We are humans and we are bound to make mistakes, but you can try your best to not cause any harm with yours." Phil said, making his point. "I need to go in a few minutes, mom needs help with dinner since Martyn and Cornelia are coming too. She keeps asking about you and Lizzie. She doesn't accept the fact that you are not coming to my birthday." 

 

"I'm sorry. I really am. I wish we could go, but there is no way I can get in a 4 hours train ride with Lizzie and not get outed to the world."

 

"Well, she misses Lizzie. She still talks about the fact that we took two years to tell her, but she is so in love with that kid that I think she would prefer having Lizzie here for my birthday, than having me." 

 

"Well, what can I say? She got my charm." 

 

"And Clary's charisma, that's a fatal combination." He agreed. "You should go wake her up, or she won't sleep during the night. Try to take her out of the house for a few minutes so she can have some air and play a bit. I'll go help my mom and we can talk before bed." 

 

"Alright, have fun with your family."

 

"Thank you. Bye Dan, I love you." He says, warming my heart.

 

"I love you too." We disconnect. 

 

I finish eating my popcorn and cleaning the mess we've made, before waking Lizzie up. We decide to go out for that ice cream we were talking about earlier, I make sure to put a nice hoodie on, and cover her with jackets, before going out in the cold air of London. As soon as we step outside we notice that today isn't probably the best to go out for ice cream, since it's snowing.

 

"Hey Lizzie, how about a hot cocoa instead of ice cream?" I ask her, while holding her little hand on the streets.   I'm afraid of everyone that passes by. I have a hoodie on and glasses, and I expect not being recognized since I have a kid with me, and Phil isn't by nmy side, but I'm always worried that someone will notice me and destroy Lizzie's life. 

 

"I love hot cocoa. After that can we go ice skating too?" She asks, looking up to make a Pussy in Boots face. 

 

"Yes, we can do that."  I answer, trying to think of a nice ice skating rink where I might be able to stay incognito. The snow is getting stronger so I put Lizzie in my arms and get us a cab, instead of taking the tube. Precautions are never too much. 

 

"Hey daddy, can we buy uncle Phil a gift?" Asked my baby girl, when we were safe and warm inside of the cab. 

 

"Yes, of course my baby girl. What do you want to get him?" She thinks for a few seconds before answering.

 

"Do you think we can get him a baby girl too?" 

 

"Wait, what? A baby girl? Why?" I'm kinda in shock and don't actually know what to answer.

 

"Yeah, like you have me. You once said that I was the best gift that mommy ever gave you, and I wanted to give uncle Phil the best gift ever. Do you think we can get him a Lizzie of his own?" I choke on air when I understand what she is saying. 

 

“I don’t think that is possible Lizzie.”

 

“Why not?” Great question, why can’t I give Phil a daughter?

 

“Ahm… I… That’s the thing Lizzie, to get a baby you need a mommy and a daddy, and it takes time, love, and I lot of things that hopefully you only will learn about in 10 years or so.” I hear the cab driver laughing at me, and I try not panic with the face Lizzie is making at me. “What about a plushie? We can get him a plushie! He will love it!” 

 

“Like Miss Llama?” She asks, completely over the other subject, for my happiness. “I don’t think he will like Miss Llama.” 

 

“And what do you think he will like?” At this point I’ll buy her anything she wants to give Phil, anything to stay out of the babies subject.

 

“A LEGO CASTLE! He gave me a Frozen Castle for Christmas, and mommy always said that we only give gifts that we would like to get ourselves. I want to give him a lego castle. Can we get it for him Daddy?” She asks, really excited. 

 

“Yes, of course! We will get him a lego castle, tomorrow morning, okay? Now lets go get that hot cocoa so we can bust our asses in ice later.” Did I just said ass to my four year old daughter? “Wait, forget I said that, don’t tell your mom… Don’t tell uncle Phil I said that.” I correct myself before she notices it, the cab driver is still laughing when the car stops. I make sure Lizzie has a nice cup of hot cocoa, and that she is really protected from the ice when we start skating. It took us over ten falls, and an almost broken arm, on my side, to get us out of the ice rink, and straight to a nice fun restaurant, close to the apartment. 

 

Lizzie fell asleep in my arms before we got home, and I made sure to take her out of the wet clothes and into nice warm pajamas, before putting her to bed. I make sure to call Phil and let him know that everything went right during the day, before taking a shower and opening my computer. But nothing was right when I logged on my twitter account, and pictures of me and Lizzie were all over my mentions, all over the internet.

 

I think I’ll pass out. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, leave kudos so I know if you are enjoying it!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for how long it took me to write this. I was finishing college and working on getting into grad school. Now I'm finally accepted to grad school, and enjoying my brief vacation, and I'll be able to write a bit for you all!!
> 
>  

 

**Phil's POV**

 

No, no, no. This can't be happening on the only day that Dan is alone in the house with Lizzie. The only day that I'm not there to help, to secure him that everything is going to be okay and that he doesn't need to panic. I'm panicking. I need to go home and there is no train that leaves now. I need a car but I haven't been driving for the past 10 years. I call my mom for help and she joins me in the room, trying to calm me down. 

 

"Have you tried calling him?" She asks.

 

"Yes! He is not answering his phone or the house line. I have to go back home." I start packing my things and run around the room. My mom holds me in place and tries to calm me down.

 

"How do you plan on going home? There are no trains leaving now. It's past 11pm Phil, you should try to sleep and wait until the morning. It's your birthday in just a few minutes, we can celebrate tonight and in the morning you catch the first train." 

 

"Mom, I'm sorry but I don't feel like celebrating tonight, okay? I just wanna go home and make sure Danny is okay." I don't want to sound rude, so I give her a little smile and continue packing. I have an idea. "Can you call Martyn for me please? Probably he is still awake. I'll see if he can drive me back to London tonight." 

 

"I'm ready. Cornelia is finishing grabbing her stuff. We just saw it all over twitter, there is no way we would let Dan pass thru this alone." Martyn said joining us in the room. "I'll load your bags in the car if you are done packing. Try calling Dan again, or anyone that could get there before us. I don’t think he should be alone for the hours we’ll take to get there.” He grabbed my bags and left the room before I could thank him or say anything else. I tried calling Dan again, no answer. I trow the phone on the bed. 

 

“I should go with you then. To check on Lizzie, make sure my boys will be okay.” Mom said, holding my arm. 

 

"No mom. Dan is probably going crazy right now. The last thing he needs is a crowded house and people around him. He needs space and time, and he needs not to be worried about anything right now so he can figure out what to do next." I try to explain without being rude.

 

"How do you know so well what he needs?"

 

"We've been living together for years, we've been friends for way longer than that. Dan and I, we have a deep connection. Trust me mom, I know what he needs right now, and it's me back in our home, taking care of our little girl, while he takes a time for himself." I turn to leave the room, but I go back to hug her. "I'm sorry this messed up our family weekend and the birthday party you were throwing me. I love you mom, I'll call once we figure things out." I leave and Martyn meets us downstairs. Everything is happening too fast, I almost forget to say goodbye to my father before getting into the car and driving out of the garage. _Just hang in there Dan, I'm coming._

 

 

 

 

**Dan's POV**

 

For those of you who have never passed out in your life before, I have something to tell you. Different from what some of you may think, when you pass out, your vision doesn't just get dark, like closing your eyes. When you pass out you feel your head getting lighter, and you start to see little glittery and blackish spots appearing all around you, and when they multiply enough they just cover your whole vision. Also, there are a few levels of how passed out you can be too. You might completely blackout. You can just go off for a few seconds and come back. Or you can loose all of your vision, loose your sense of life, but still be able to hear things around you, as if you were underwater. As scary as the first two might sound, nothing is worse than this last one. You can hear life passing around you, but you just aren't able to be a part of it. You can't speak to tell people that you are okay, but you can hear their despair and the things that are happening. It feels like you are a blind ghost. You can’t see shit, you can’t interact, but you are scaring people around. This is how I felt at the moment I realized that everyone knew about Lizzie, but I was a lonely ghost, with no one around to be afraid or worried about me. 

 

My brain tries to find something to hold on to, but all I can find is the memories from Clary's funeral. I need someone to wake me up and tell me that things will be alright, I need Phil. I feel my phone buzzing in my pocket, I hear the house line going insane, but I'm floating in darkness, with nothing I can do to turn the lights on. And then I blackout. 

 

"Daddy! Wake up daddy I'm scared!" I hear a little voice far away in my brain, crying. I start to feel things. First I feel Lizzie's cold little hands in my face. I focus in my arms, to regain control of them so I can hold her. I open my eyes, and in a few seconds I'm able to see again. Light is coming back to me, as all of my senses are. I know Lizzie is crying when I feel the tears in my shirt. I get up as fast as my body allows me, and I hold her tight. "I... I thought you went to live in heaven with mommy." Cried my four years old, holding her little hands in my shirt. 

 

"No baby llama, of course not! I told you that I'm not going to leave you anytime soon." I try holding my tears, until she calms down. My phone starts ringing again, but I don’t feel like answering it. All that I can think about is where in the world I could run to, that people wouldn’t bother us, where Lizzie could grow up as a normal child, with no fans around to destroy her childhood. Maybe Alaska. Or Greenland. I should pack some winter clothes. 

 

“Your phone is ringing daddy.” Lizzie says after the fourth time - in 2 minutes - that my phone started buzzing. I think about telling her that I give no fucks for my phone right now, but I decide not to do that. And then I remember: Phil. Phil isn’t home. Phil might have seen what happened, I need to talk to Phil.

 

I grab the cellphone in my pocket, and I have tons of missed calls, most of them from the one and only Phil Lester. I’m typing his number to call him back, and the phone buzzes again, his picture in my screen.

 

“Phil.” I answer. My voice breaks in the minute I hear his breathing, and then I’m crying. I’m crying everything that I haven’t since the picture leaked. I try to hear him, but I can’t hear a single thing over my sobbing. I know that Lizzie is still holding on to me, sat on the floor by my side, but I can’t hear her either. It takes me a few minutes before I’m calm enough to talk.

 

“I’m so sorry Dan. I’m really sorry. I wish I was there. Martyn is taking me home, I’ll be there soon enough.” He is saying, and I try to focus on it. “Don’t go online. Don’t take any other phone calls, don’t try to fix it. We will work things out together.” He is trying to take the control, so I don’t feel overwhelmed. But I’ve made my mind already. 

 

“I think I’ll move to Greenland.” I say, and he is quiet on the other side of the line. “You don’t need to come. I know you don’t want to move far from your family, but I need to take Lizzie out of this madness. We will live in a cabin and she will grow up with polar bears. Safer than the fans.” I  burst out. He is speechless. Lizzie is holding me tight, just paying attention on what I’m saying, almost sleeping. 

 

“Dan, I think we can talk about that once I get home, okay? No rushed decisions, we will discuss everything we can do, and after that if you still want to move to Greenland, we will discuss the moving plans. But don’t go around packing bags.” He is calmer than I think it is possible for someone to be in this situation.

 

“You don’t understand Phil. She can’t go to school here, there will always be one or two people that won’t respect our wishes and will follow her to her class. There will be phans trying to work at her school to be around her without saying that this is what they are doing. There will be phans trying to find out her entire past and phans making shifts around Clary’s grave waiting the day that we will visit her. They don’t know the meaning of the word “limits”. There will be no peace. I can’t make her grow up in this madness.” I make a pause and then I continue making my case. “We are used to bumping into fans in the streets that claims that they were just “passing thru the neighborhood” but we both know that they have being walking in circles around our block just to meet us once we leave the flat. We are used to screams, we are used to privacy invasion. We are used to pretend that we don’t care about what they say about us. But I don’t want Lizzie to get used to any of this.” 

 

“I do understand Dan, and I agree with you, I don’t think that she should grow up in any of these situations. But Greenland is a bit excessive. We can think of better solutions, Martyn is saying that he can help us with that if we need. We can move flats, we will find something. Please don’t go to extremes right now.” He is worried about me. He doesn’t understand. 

 

“We can talk when you get home.” I cut the conversation, because I don’t wanna fight him. “How long until you get here?”

 

“Two hours, maybe a bit more, Martyn isn’t running that much, now that you answered the phone.” 

 

“Please be careful.” I ask, and he knows what I mean. I don’t think I can deal with another accident in my life time. 

 

“Don’t worry, Martyn is a great driver. I’ll be home safe in a while.”

 

“Please do. I don’t wanna be alone right now.” I open my heart to him. I’m not alone, since Lizzie is sleeping in my arms, but I need him, and he gets it, he knows it.

 

“You won’t. You should go take a bath. Have you eaten anything in the past 4 hours?” I deny with my head, even though he cant see it, figures it out by my silence. “Go make us some really late diner, to take your head out of things, I’m hungry and technically it’s my birthday already, so I deserve some homemade food.” 

 

“Happy Birthday Phil.” I say, trying to sound excited, but I’m not that good of an actor. He can see that too.

 

“It won’t be a happy day until I know that we all are gonna be fine.” He answers, but he thanked me anyway. “I’ll turn the phone off, so you can take a relaxing bath and start diner. I’ll be there before you can say “diner is ready”.” He laughs, taking a smile from me.

 

“See you soon.”

 

“I want cake.” Thats all he says before turning the phone off. I have a sleepy Lizzie in my arms, sat on the floor, and I have no idea of what to cook or if I have enough things to make a cake. I make a schedule in my brain, trying to fit everything into three hours. First I’ll put my daughter back on our bed, than I’ll make the cake, and while it bakes I’ll take a bath. Then I’ll start diner, maybe a salad and some grilled chicken. If I’m correct, I’ll have just enough time to finish everything and decorate the cake, so we can have a 4am diner. Late diner it is. 

 

I start my plan, leaving Lizzie with the bedroom door open, and I move to the kitchen with my computer so I can youtube search a cake recipe. It isn’t until, I start grilling the chicken, after the whole bath and cake thing, that I notice what Phil had done. He took my mind completely out of the crazy mess it was. That son of a bitch.  

 

 

 

 

**Phil’s POV**

 

“I’ll call you later, okay? I’ll let you know what the plan is once we figure it out. I have to go.” I tell Martyn before leaving his car and sprinting to my flat. 

 

The stairs never felt so high in my life. I ran over them, expecting to find a existencial crisis Dan, in the middle of the hall. But what I found was as far from that as possible. Daniel James Howell was dancing around the kitchen, decorating a birthday cake, at 3am. He didn’t notice my presence until he turned around and saw me standing in front of the kitchen door. We didn’t say a thing, we just stared at each other, happy to be finally together to stand against all the things trying to destroy our little family. 

 

The grill biped making us both jump. Dan laughed, turned around to get us whatever he was cooking, and placed on the counter. 

 

“Dinner is ready.” He said. 

 

“Told ya i would be here before you could say that.”

 

“Well, I could have said it earlier, I just waited for you.” 

 

“I hate you.”

 

“No you don’t, I just baked you a birthday cake from things I’ve found around the kitchen. You love me.”

 

“Since you’ve started in this subject, am I gonna get a birthday hug or you are going to continue there starring at me? You know, I’ve just skipped my birthday party for you, I should at least get a hug.”

 

Dan walked in my direction and placed his arms around my body. I knew this was supposed to be my birthday hug, but it didn’t feel like that. I confirmed that as I felt his tears making a wet spot in my shoulder. He didn’t deserve that. All the worries, all the craziness. He always gave all of him to make sure everything was fine, there’s no way that he was one to deserve all the problems he was dealing with right now. I wanted to put him in a little jar and keep him safe from all the world problems.

 

“I’ve decided what I wanna do.” Dan said, after a few minutes. 

 

“And what are we going to do?” 

 

“We are going to run away to Brazil.” 

 

“We’ve been over this already. Greenland, Brazil, Madagascar, this is all a bit excessive. We can deal with things without having to move to another time zone.”

 

“Where did Madagascar come from?” He left my embrace to look at my face. 

 

“Well, Brazil isn’t a good idea, too much people. If you want a tropical remote place, we should move to Madagascar. But that’s not the point. We are not moving. We shouldn’t have to run away and change our whole lives because some people don’t know the meaning of ‘privacy’.” I let him go, and start making a plate with the diner he prepared for us. “We’ll have diner, I’ll take a shower, we’ll go to bed and sleep, and in the morning, we will decide what to do. If you wanna leave London a bit, to get some clean thoughts and try to run away from social media, great. We will find a place in the UK to go, because Lizzie still doesn’t have a passport. But we are not going to rush things, okay?”

 

“Okay.” He agrees with me, grabbing a serving of the grilled chicken too. “Can we watch some Attack on Titan while we eat? I need some blood and destruction to get my head out of things.”

 

“Go put it on, I’ll put my bag in my room and I’ll be right back.” I leave my plate on the table in the lounge, put my things in my room, and check on Lizzie, before going back to Dan in the sofa, waiting for me. “Just one episode because it is really late already, and I do need some sleep.”

 

“You’re gonna watch one. I’ll need at least two more to fill in the time you are gonna be in the shower for.” He teases me. 

 

“I’m too tired to stay there for more than 5 minutes. I wouldn’t take a shower if I wasn’t really needing one.”

 

We eat, finish the episode, and I go take a shower while Dan stays in his sofa crease, watch more Attack on Titan. I only take 15 minutes in the shower, but I decide to do the dishes before returning to Dan. It’s almost 5am when we move to my bed and decide to lay down.

 

“How’s Lizzie doing?” I ask, trying to make some conversation. 

 

“She’s fine. I don’t think she has any idea of the shitstorm happening right now. I wish I could keep her like that forever.” I take a few minutes thinking, before saying what is actually going on in my mind. We are laying down facing each other, and he is so much calmer than he was before, so I think it’s a good time to raise my hypothesis in all of this mess. 

 

“Have you ever considered the fact that this isn’t a big deal at all?” 

 

“What?” He sits on the bed. 

 

“Please don’t freak out. Just think about it for a second. How much easier it’s going to be your life now. We can go out with Lizzie without worrying about anyone finding out about her. She won’t have a normal life, but being locked in a house isn’t a normal life either. Once all this fire extinguishes, no one will care about who she is and why she is here. I think we should just come out and tell them your story, and everything will be alright eventually.” I try to reason with him, but it doesn’t go well.

 

“I can’t even believe that you are saying that. I…. Goodnight Phil.” Dan got out of the bed, and left the room, smashing the door closed. Well, I think I fucked up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this isn't good, i've been trying to work on it for months, and I hate it so much! But I promise the next one will be better!


	13. Part 13

MLBL 13

 

 

Dan’s POV

 

“I don’t want talk to you.” That’s the first thing I tell Phil as soon as I see him in front of me in the morning. 

 

“Please Dan, just listen to me for a second.” He is walking behind me, ignoring the fact that I am trying to ignore him. 

 

“I won’t. I don’t want to. I’m sorry but I can’t believe that you, of all of the people, would turn on me like that.”

 

“I’m not turning on you. I’m just trying to help you see the other side of things. It doesn’t mean that you have to follow what I said, I just want you to consider that things might not be as done as you think they are.”

 

“I don’t think things are done. I just know that if I don’t do anything, Lizzie’s future is doomed.”

 

“No, it isn’t! Look at Darcy. Look at the Saccone-Joly kids. They have completely normal lives. They go to school and have friends and they are able to go out with their family whenever they want. I’m not saying that we can compare our fans to Louise’s, but can’t you even try to believe that things will be okay, just for a second?” He holds my arm, turning me to him.

 

“No, I can’t. I tried to believe in you when you said that the things would be okay, once before. It didn’t end well, did it? We didn’t have any peace. We didn’t have a life, until we lied about it for years and tried to pretend it wasn’t real. So no. I won’t give my self the luxury to believe in our fans, because they don’t deserve that.” I know I have tears going down on my face. I know I just screw everything up a little bit more for mentioning the time of our lives that both of us worked so hard do ignore that existed. 

 

“Dan…” He tries to say something, but I know my words hurt him too. “You know how sorry I am about that. You know that if I could, I would change everything about that year, so we could be okay, so I would never hurt you like that. But this isn’t anything like 2012 at all Dan. This is about Lizzie. This is about how you want her to live. Please just give it a few thoughts before deciding again that hiding her is the best idea. It was a great idea, until people found out. Now you can’t just lie about it.”

 

“Why not? We’ve done that before. We’ve done it for so many years. Why can’t we just add a “cousin” to the list of “pranks” we’ve done in life?” I know my words are cutting him like knives, but I just can’t control myself right now, not after spending the whole night awake thinking about it. 

 

“Do you really want Lizzie to look to her past one day, and find out that her dad lied about her for her whole life? Do you really want her to grow up in a lie? We haven’t been lying about her to people until now. Do you really want to start something that you won’t ever be able to change for her? They might found out one day and just accept it and move on, but do you really think that Lizzie will be happy with you, if you do that?” He tries to reason with me, and I kinda get what he is saying, but I don’t want to agree with him. “I’m not saying that we should put her in our videos, or that we should make a vlogging channel with her, or that we should make this huge disclaimer about how you have a kid and explain her whole existence. I’m just saying that we shouldn’t lie. If someone asks you directly if she is your daughter, you say yes. You ask them to be discrete, and move on. You don’t have to talk about her, you don’t have to answer all the theories on Twitter. Just don’t lie. That’s all I’m asking.” I’m agreeing with my head, because I don’t think my voice will work if I try to say something. There are too many tears falling from my face, stopping me from that. “Thank you. I don’t think I can deal with any more lies in life.” He says, and I completely get it, I know it. I decide to hug him, because I know we’ve both been hurting, and we’ve both been lying, even to ourselves. 

 

“We haven’t had your cake yet.” I say as soon as I hug him, and I see the cake over the kitchen counter, behind him.

 

“No we haven’t, but we should wait Lizzie for that anyway.” He doesn’t let me go, and I know that’s because he is waiting for me to calm down, so I don’t go crazy on him again. “Now to other matters. I’ve decided to where we are going.”

 

“Wait, now you wanna run away?” I leave his arms to face him.

 

“We’re not running away. Well, we are. But not to another continent. I think its time for us to take a trip to the beach. Relax a little, have a fun time with some  old friends, enjoy some fun activities at the pier…”

 

“Are you saying that you want us to run to Brighton? A small city with a huge youtube community? A city with a large crowd of viewers passing thru every single day? Are you nuts? We are supposed to be running to the Himalayas, not to Brighton. If I wanted a load of fans crowding over us, we would just stay here in London.”

 

“Well, that’s the point. We are not running from the fans, we are running from responsibilities. This is us taking a vacation to enjoy some friends time, and to take your daughter to her first beach ever.”

 

“Phil, this isn’t the time to take a vacation. We have a lot to deal with right now. There’s no way we can just leave it all here and go to the beach. And how the hell do you think we’ll be able to go to the beach in Brighton anyway? Last time we’ve been there, we weren’t able to stay on the shore for more than 10 minutes without a line forming to take pictures with us.”

 

“I’ll figure this out once we’re there. Now go wake up the llama, I want cake.” 

 

“I won’t wake up my child because you want cake. Let her sleep.” 

 

“But it’s my birthday, I want to eat my birthday cake and enjoy my two favorite people in the world.”

 

“Woah, you haven’t told me that Sarah Michell Geller was coming. I would have cleaned the house if you did.”

 

“You shut up! You know who I meant.” He bumps me, moving to the kitchen. “If you won’t wake her up, I’ll have to eat without the two of you.” 

 

“NO! Are you crazy? You can’t cut your birthday cake without singing and making a wish!” I try to stop him from cutting his cake, by stopping him to get a knife. “I’ll go wake Lizzie. Don’t do anything while I do that.” 

 

His birthday passed without any other big things happening. We tried staying out of social media, and we contacted our friends down in Brighton, to explain things and plan our visit. We would stay with PJ and Sophie for a while, but Alfie actually gave us a great idea of a runaway place.

 

“What should I take to a treehouse? I have no idea what the dress code is over there.” Asked Phil, showing me two of his shirts.

 

“Phil, the whole idea of the treehouse is to stay inside, with a gorgeous view,  enjoy the hot tub and great food without even having to open the door for the room service. At least that is what Alfie and Zoe promised us. I don’t care about what the hell you are going to be using. I expect to wear pyjamas and slippers all day, playing games and pretending that the real world doesn’t exist.” I try to find some clean PJs to put in my bag.

 

"Pjs and slippers it is. Have you packed Lizzie's bag already?"

 

"She said that she wanted to do it, so I gave her an hour to finish it. Her bags are over there in the corner.“ I point to three packed bags that I know that are filled with toys.

 

"Dan, she is 4, not 14. Do you really expect her to pack anything other than her toys?" Like I said, filled with toys. 

 

"No. That's why I'll open everything when she goes to bed, and add whatever is missing." 

 

"I could just help her, you know. Easier."  He offers. "I'm just finishing mine in a couple of minutes." 

 

"Don't worry about that, its good for her to do something by herself." I check under my bed, but I can’t find the pants I’m looking for. “Have you seen my Pokemón Trainer track suit?” I ask Phil.

 

“Its in my room. I stole it last week. I’ll give it back to you if you give me back my Jake hoodie.” 

 

“But the Jake hoodie is almost as much yours as it is mine by now. I’ve been wearing it for like 3 years. You can’t compare them.” I try to reason with him, because the hoodie is already packed and I don’t want to unpack my bag to take it of.

 

"Dan, you have to stop stealing my clothes. If you keep doing that I'll have to continue getting yours to replace the ones you've stolen, otherwise I'll have to walk around the flat completely naked." I want to make a fun commentary about how his naked butt isn’t something new for me, but I remember the discussion we just had, and all the things that I said that I wasn’t supposed to be making references to, and I decide to leave the fact that I’m more used to his naked body than roommates usually are with each other, out of it. 

 

“I’ll stop stealing your nice clothes when you stop buying them.” I joke, placing my packed bag on the floor and grabbing one of Lizzie’s bags to change what she packed. 

 

“I’ll stop buying them if you let me borrow yours.” Phil winks at me, joking too, and helps me taking Lizzie’s toys out of her bag. 

 

“And then I’ll be the one walking around the house butt naked.” I stop to look at him and raise an eyebrow.

 

“I guess both of us are going to be walking around naked then.” He stares at me.

 

“Can I walk around naked too? I hate putting clothes on, they are so uncomfortable.” And that’s my daughter on the door frame.

 

“NO.” We both said looking at her.

 

“No one is going to be walking around the flat naked. This is not a conversation that we’ve had in this house, forget all about it.” I said falling into my knees to look at her face and make sure that she understood. “Okay?”

 

“Okay daddy.”

 

“Good, now go put your pjs because its time for you to go to bed.” I organize the bed while she is putting her pjs on, and once she's done I move her downstairs so she can brush her teeth, before I put her to bed and I open the second Harry Potter book to read it for her.

 

"Daddy, why doesn't Harry's family like him? Why are they hiding him and locking him away?" She asked after a couple of minutes of me reading for her.

 

"I guess they are just scared of him and the eyes that he brings to the family. They don't want people to thing that their family is weird or unusual, but they are raising their nephew that is an unusual kid, and that's very uncommon in their social circle, they are ashamed of being different. They are also jealous of him being a wizard, and afraid of him because he is more powerful than they are." I try to explain my point of view on it.

 

"Why do they care about what other people think of them? Harry is a good kid, isn't him? And he is family. Mom always says that we should always love and protect family, and that we should never be ashamed of being different." She argues back. I try to think on how to explain to her about the whole protecting him because of his mother love and staying under her sister roof would give him that protection, but she continues before I can try. "I heard you telling uncle Phil that you don't want people to know who I am. You almost never leave the house with me, and mom never let me tell people that you are my daddy." She doesn't make her point, but I get what she is asking. How the hell is she only four? 

 

"I'm not ashamed of you, baby girl. If that's what you are thinking. I'm so proud of having you as my daughter. You are so smart and beautiful, I can't even believe how amazing you are. But you have to understand that I try to keep you hidden because I want to protect you." I hug her, to make my point stronger. "Harry had some bad people trying to get him, and staying  hidden with his muggle family is what gave him protection from them for years. I'm just trying to keep the bad people away from you." 

 

“Why are the bad people trying to get me?”

 

“They are not actually bad people, little llama. But they aren’t all nice either, so we need to be careful. This isn’t conversation for right now. Do you want to me to go back to the book or not?” I ask, trying to change the subject. She agrees with the reading, and I go back to the book, expecting her to forget our conversation and go to sleep. After a chapter and a half, and some warm milk, that’s what happens. 

 

I place the book in my shelf, change into my pjs, and I joins her in our sleep, knowing that the next day will be a long one. 

 

Phil isn't much of a complainer, so I know that it isn't just paranoia when he complains about our travel arrangements. 

 

"Tell me, why did we take the train?" He asks, when he notices the two girls freaking out on the other side of the train car, noticing our presence. 

 

"Because you said that it was going to be fun for Lizzie to see the view from the train ride to Brighton. Your fault. And guess what? She's not paying attention to the view." I tell him in low voice, expecting people not to hear us. Lizzie is sleeping laying In my arms and I also don't want to wake her up. 

 

"It's six am. I didn't think that we would have fans riding trains at 6am."

 

"By now we should be used to them everywhere. But hey, at least they aren't making a scene. It could be worse." I point it out, and just by Phil's change of facial expression I know that I said that too early. I notice that they are coming closer to us as their not so silent whispers get louder in our ears. I try to hold Lizzie closer, kinda hiding her face in my chest. 

 

"OMG it is you! Can we please have a picture?" Says one of the girls as they get to us. Me and Phil smile at them and then stare at each other, trying to decide how we could do this with Lizzie staying out of the picture. 

 

"Of course, but I'm afraid you will only be able to have one of us in the picture at a time. " Phil says, getting up and hugging one of them, then the other. 

 

"That's completely fine, we will get two pictures in the end!" One of them sounds excited by it, and it makes me feel calmer. 

 

Phil takes a selfie with them, and then moves to my side so he can get Lizzie from my arms, so they can have a selfie with me. 

 

"She can stay in the picture too, we don't mind!" One of them said, and I kinda panic. I was hoping they would just ignore Lizzie's existence and move on.

 

"I would prefer not. And I would be very grateful if you girls could keep the commentaries about her and all of this to yourselves. Please." I say, passing Lizzie to Phil's arms. He looks at me as I said something wrong, bug right now there isn’t much time to discuss things.

 

"Yes, of course, no problem, we promise we won't say a thing, right Janice?" One of them says in a rush and the other agrees quickly. I thank them and we take our selfie, me and Phil give them an autograph and they go back to their seats with no more questions asked. I'm relieved. I turn to Phil, so I can get Lizzie back, but he refuses to give me my child.

 

“She is very comfortable here, its warm and cozy, just leave her be, I’ll give you her if my arms start to hurt.” He says, and I agree sitting down. I wait for a few seconds, and there it is, what he wanted to tell me earlier near the girls, but couldn’t. “I don’t think that asking them not to talk about her will make much of a diference. They won’t be able to keep it hidden. Someone will see our picture with them and they will ask if the little girl from the other day was with us, and they won’t lie, and a load of theories will come up.”

 

“ I know. I just wouldn’t feel okay if I didn’t even try, you know…”

 

"Yes, but somethings are just out of your control. You're gonna have to deal with it." 

 

"I wish that I could at least keep control of my daughter’s life until she’s able to do that.”

 

“And when do you think that you will accept that she is old enough and that she’s be able to do that?” 

 

“Never. Probably.” I say after a couple of minutes thinking. Phil laughs and Lizzie moves, kinda waking up. Phil starts rocking her and she goes back to sleep. “You can give me her, you know…” 

 

“I know, I just don’t want to. I like having her close.” I agree and I leave it like that. We don’t have much more time in the train anyway, and I do have a few bags more to carry than Phil, so he can carry her if she’s still sleeping.

 

It isn’t even 8am when we arrive in Brighton, but PJ and Sophie are already at the train station waiting on us. They are really excited to meet Lizzie, but as I assumed earlier, she is still sleeping. We put her into the spare room bed once we arrive at Peej, and we go to the living room to talk. Sophie is the first to break the silence. 

 

"Oh Dan, she's so gorgeous. A princess indeed. I'm kinda mad you've hidden her from us, but I understand why you wanted to keep her all to yourself." 

 

“I’m glad you understand my pure selfish reasons to keep her hidden for four years.” I joke, joining them at the couch, and she laughs. “But thanks, she is a hand full, but she’s amazing.”

 

“She’s not a handful! Don’t say that! She’s great at all times.” Phil says, pushing me to the side so he can sit too.  

 

“Yeah, you say that because she isn't the one kic king you in the ribs during the night." 

 

"Well, no, she isn't the one kicking me in the ribs, you are." He pushes me a bit and we notice Peej and Sophie's eyes on us. "Dan has been sleeping in my bed a few times a week since Lizzie moved in with us, because she doesn't let him sleep and we haven't bought her a bed yet." Phil explains.

 

"Oh, okay." Sophie says, Just ignoring it and moving on, but I can see in Pjs face that he was still analyzing it.

 

"I thought that Dan's bed was bigger. Isn't it still more comfortable sleeping with Lizzie, with some pillows around her, than with Phil? She's a quarter of his size." 

 

"She moves too much and I don't want her to be uncomfortable. She has been dealing with so much stuff lately, I don't want to cause her any more pain or whatever."

 

"Well, sometimes you have to think about yourself too, about your comfort and your feelings. What was the last time you too had a full on day to yourselves? No meeting to worry about, no kid to worry about. Just play games, watch animes, sleep as much as you want?" We don't answer Peej, and he kinda gets it. "A few weeks at least, right?" We agree. 

 

"Well, we are gonna change that. Starting with game night tonight. Felix and Marzia are coming. We will play some Camel Up, and Tokaido, and pretend that the world isn't falling down outside this walls." 

 

"We should play some Mario Kart 8. Long time since I've wrecked you guys with that." I joke, and we are all laughing again.

 

"Anything to make my guests happy. Even if that means being destroyed in my own house." PJ answers. We spent the rest of the morning chatting and by lunch time Lizzie woke up. She was scared because she didn’t know where she was, and then scared again when she found us at the living room, and PJ and Sophie were both there. 

 

“Hey hey hey sweet llama, no reason for panicking, I’m right here.” I say getting out of the couch and finding her half a way into the room, where she stopped and started crying. “Come on, lets say hi to some of daddy’s friends.” She’s hiding behind my leg while I walk back closer to PJ. “So this is PJ, and this is Sophie.” I say showing them. They both say hi, and she hides behind me. “Say hi honey, common.” She leaves my legs and say hi to both of them.

 

“Hey sweetie, do you want a cookie?” Asked Sophie, and Lizzie looked at me asking for permission. I tell her that its fine and I let them go. 

 

“Don’t let her eat more than one, we still need to have lunch!” Phil screams, after they leave the room. “You can’t let her eat before lunch Dan, she will start getting used to it and we won’t be able to control her when she’s older.” 

 

“Well, she was scared, I wanted her to be happy again.” I try to make my point.

 

“That’s not how parenting goes, Dan.” Phil says. 

 

“But I can’t keep her from enjoying the good things in life.”

 

“She’ll be able to enjoy the cookie after lunch, later on the day.”

 

“Well, if there is one thing I learned this past few weeks its that we never should leave anything to later, we should always enjoy the good things in life at the moment we want them.” 

 

“Dan, she is not going to choke on her lunch and die. She can have the cookies later.” 

 

“What the hell is happening? You are supposed to be the one giving her the cookies now, since I’m the one usually stopping you from have all the popcorn in the world before diner.” 

 

“Well, I eat popcorn before diner because my parents never told me I shouldn’t. We have to give her good exemples.” 

 

“You sound like an old marry couple trying to raise your kid.” Said PJ, that was just watching us. 

 

“We’re just trying to do our best.” I say, sitting down again.

 

“I think you guys are doing a great job. She’s still alive. That counts for something.” PJ makes a joke, and we just laugh a bit and let it die. “Common, lets decide what we are gonna be having for lunch today. We can choose between Mexican, French, Italian, or the old fish and chips.”

 

“I miss fish and chips, we could go for that, if everyone agrees.” Says Phil. 

 

“I’m down for it.” I agree. 

 

“Me too.” Sophie says, coming back to the room with a happy Lizzie in her arms, eating a chocolate chip cookie. 

 

“Wolfies it is.” Said PJ getting up. And the he sat down again. “Do you guys wanna go there, or stay here inside hiding from the world? I can go pick it up if you want.” He offers. I look at Phil and we have a whole conversation just by looks before I tell them what we chose. 

 

“We’ll go. We can’t hide forever.” I say, and Phil agree’s. “I’m just gonna change Lizzie’s clothes and we can head out.” I grab my daughter and move to the room where our bags are. “What do you wanna put on Lizzie Llama? Black dress or Pink shirt?”

 

“Black dress Daddy.” 

 

“Black dress it is.” I say, trying not to panic. We decided to leave but I was 99% not comfortable with that yet. Phil enters the room as Lizzie is putting her shoes on. 

 

“In a scale of 1 to Dil’s house catching on fire, how scared are you right now?”

 

“Our house catching on fire.” 

 

“Okay, that’s kinda extreme. It won’t be that bad, you’ll see. We will get a cab, enter the restaurant, eat, and leave. The worst that can happen is like 5 fans find us and take a couple of pictures, we will ask them to be discreet, as the two on the train, and that’s it. Trust me.”

 

“Okay. I’ll trust you.”

 

“Good, let’s go them.” He helps Lizzie with her pair of shoes and we leave the room, to meet Sophie and PJ.

 

“We are ready to go. Should I call a separate cab for the three of us?” I ask, and they look weird at me. “Whats wrong?”

 

“Well, we are not taking a cab. Wolfies is just a few blocks away from here. We always walk there.”  Said Sophie, and PJ looked at us kinda apologetic. “Is that a problem? We can grab a cab if you want.” 

 

“No, its fine, right Dan? Everything will be alright.” Tried Phil, and I know I’m on the verge of panicking.

 

“I wanna walk there, Daddy. I like to see the birds.” Said Lizzie. I just agree with them and we leave the house, without thinking much about it.

 

“We will be okay Dan.” That’s all PJ says as we leave their house.

 

It takes us 20 minutes to get there. It would be less if we haven’t met a couple of viewers on the way, but it wasn’t that bad. I was getting hopeful that things would be aright with Lizzie out of the bag. We have lunch with no interruptions, and then we decide to push our look to the limit, and walk to the beach. That’s when everything goes down.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost didn't post this. But here it is. And to all the people saying that this is shit and I shouldn't be writing: Fuck-off. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading <3

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress. I'm taking my time with it. Please let me know what you think about it!


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